Miyuki's SpacedOut Secret
by ChakiChakiGirl
Summary: This Lucky Star based light novel in the off-the-wall spirit of Lucky*Star Murder Case and Pocket Travelers. Soon to be fandubbed. If you thought you knew all about moe mild-mannered Miyuki, think again and be afraid. Extremely afraid...
1. Chapter 1

**_Miyuki's Spaced-Out Secret_**

by Dee "ChakichakiGirl" Eon

Foreword:

Hi! Need your feedback on this pre-doujinshi beta read inspired by the charitably retouched unsigned artwork on Deviant Art's file "Miyuki's Spaced-Out ", this light novel's in the off-the-wall spirit of _Lucky__Star__ Murder Case_ and _Pocket T__ravele__rs_, being super non-canon but remaining faithful to the characters. Well, not all of them...

**- - -**

"Oh dear, it looks like it's going to rain!" Miyuki Takara said with foreboding at turbid slate skies over the crowded beach and the light pleasure craft dock they were approaching.

Konata Izumi shrugged. "Naw, it'll all blow over, you'll see! Besides I like summer drizzles, tickling so warm and fuzzy all over your skin like sly little fingertips!"

Kagami Hiiragi snickered. "I don't want to know why you liken it that way, like why you're wearing a sixth-grade swimsuit."

"Ah, I wear it with pride! If you notice, Kagamin, it gets me way more gawks than all your two-piecers!"

"That kind of 'gawk' is a sad testament of the state of Japanese morals these days!" Kagami sourly retorted.

"At least it keeps boys from bothering us!" Tsukasa Hiiragi remarked. "Boys make me nervous – especially ones with cameras!"

"You need glasses more than Yuki-chan! How could my appeal keep boys away??" rebuffed Konata as they stepped up on the dock where paddle boats were. An attendant bowed to them.

"Hi ladies!"

"Hi!" the girls replied with a bow. "We'd like to go out together if it's possible," Kagami requested.

"Well, you're in luck!" he said, pointing out a four seater. "That's the last one left. Only thing, I'm afraid your little sister's not old enough. Rules."

Konata's harelipped lip curled even more; "I'm three months older than they are!"

"Older? Really??" the attendant said like it was a joke before he saw the others nod and he sheepishly chuckled. "Oh. My apologies. Well, too bad all the guys on the beach don't know that or you'd all be having a lot more fun!"

The girls tittered except for Konata who glowered at Tsukasa's coy smug smile while Kagami eyed the pedal boats; "Are you sure they're safe, sir?"

"Easy as a bicycle! Just steer by pedaling, which turns paddles in the rear. These Styrofoam pontoons will keep you upright in a tidal wave and won't ever sink."

"Somewhere I heard that before," Miyuki skittishly said, "Maybe I should just sit it out on the beach with peach-flavored iced green tea as usual," she said, pink tresses swirling like a gossamer cape as she turned aside before Konata grabbed her arm.

"Hey, com'on Yuki-chan! Can't be a wallflower all your sweet moe life! Geese, if you're gonna be so shy why come bouncing out in a ravishing bikini??"

"But I – I can't swim, Konata-san!"

"I don't swim so good either out of a swim ring! And even if we somehow fall out we're wearing life vests!"

"I – I break out in rashes in salt water."

"Look, you're sitting high off the water and those big float things will keep us that way better than a rowboat at the park."

"But – suppose something completely unforeseen happens?"

"What's gonna happen? Besides if anything did, if I'm lucky I get to try out some artificial respiration on ya!" Konata lasciviously quipped then slyly glanced over at Kagami. "But if I'm twice lucky, maybe Kagamin can try it on me!"

Kagami smirked. "Pets first!"

Too polite to refuse her friends, Miyuki grudgingly but gracefully bowed and reluctantly joined the others as the attendant passed out inflatable life vests and helped each of them step unto the paddle-boat's high seats. Konata noticed the way the other attendants and beach goers were ogling how Miyuki stuffed and brimmed her peach bikini.

"Man, Yuki-chan! You're just a smile and sly blink away from a free lunch and dinner – and a breakfast if he's really lucky!"

Miyuki blushed and shyly brushed back a stray pink wisp from her cheek. "Beauty's only in the mind of the beholder, Konata-san," she demurely replied.

"Don't be so modest, Yuki-chan! Me and Kagami and Tsukasa got excuses why guys at school don't hit on us; I'm a weirdo, Tsukasa's a ditz and Kagamin's an orc –"

"Hey!!" the twins chorused.

"But you're the ultimate moe eye-candy, yet you keep dodging guys so much they don't even ask anymore. I mean there's shy and there's shy, but you're turning down passes to heaven, babe! I'd kill for just half your moe!"

"I'm just not – interested in any relationship right now, Konata-san," Miyuki uncomfortably replied. "I'm – much too involved just learning about the world."

"Man, I'm NEVER that busy!"

"No, just for video games and amine!" Kagami chided and Konata noticed Miyuki wincing at that.

"Well, I sort of expected Kagami to be rooting for her kind, but I sure could've used a little more cheerleading from you, Yuki-chan, instead of wincing and frowning at all the monsters I was blasting away in the beach arcade!"

"I – I just thought that – there was was a little too much blood-thirsty glee shining in your eyes as you slaughtered them, Konata-san," Miyuki admonished with a tint of bitterness the others found surprising. "Just because they look different doesn't make them bad or monsters. You should have tolerance of beings different from yourself. That's the only way humanity's going to survive in the universe."

"Hey, I fought the Quawik right alongside the Xortzen and they're as bug-eyed as you can get!"

Kagami sighed. "Still don't get it, do you, Mario-brain? Let's get crackin'!"

The attendant pushed them off and wistfully watched their slim legs pump the craft's bicycle-like pedals and off they went.

"This is cool! Let's see how far out we can go!" Konata said, pedaling harder than the others and so skewing their course.

Kagami chided. "Stop Konata! You're making us go in circles!"

They managed to synchronize their pedaling and found themselves churning water further and further out.

"Whoa! We're way out here!" Konata clucked like a psyched-up skydiver at a plane's door. "Wonder how deep it is out here."

"Too deep!" Miyuki nervously said. "Let's start back! It's starting to get too overcast and dark anyway!"

Tsukasa's ears perked. "Listen! Do you hear lots of faint whistles?" she asked and they craned heads and glanced around.

"It's coming from the beach!" Kagami said, squinting hard. "I think they're signaling everybody out of the water!"

"Duuuuummmm-da! Dummmmmm-da!" Konata impishly hummed deep and loud;. "Dumm-da Dumm-da Dumm-da Dumm-da Dumm-da Dumm-da –!"

Miyuki and Tsukasa mewled in fear and Kagami slapped Konata's thigh.

"Stop that, Konata! Besides we're safe from any sharks sitting up here! Now let's paddle back! You made us come out too far anyway!"

Suddenly there was a low steady rumble coming from everywhere, and quizzically Tsukasa glanced around, "What's that, Onee-chan??"

"I dunno. Sounds almost like a – a train!"

Konata scoffed. "What's a train doing out here??"

Suddenly, to their shock and awe and horror, they all saw it.

With a whooshing roar, a swirling cone of gray dropped out of the dark overcast and struck the water only a short distance away and turned blue as it began sucking volumes of ocean that rained back in torrents.

"Waterspout!!" cried Miyuki. "A sea-borne tornado!!"

"Pedal everyone! Hard! Harder!!" Kagami cried and they all furiously pedaled toward the far shore, but the storm was quicker and gained behind them. "Get under the seats and grab anything tight!!"

They ducked under the seats and grabbed the legs and struts bolted to the pontoons and held on for dear life and screamed as the roaring swirl grabbed their craft and hurtled it aloft like a leaf. The four screamed as they held on for sheer life in a dark blasting maelstrom trying to tear them away, but fortunately they were also pinned under the seats by terrible g-forces as their craft was whipped around the roaring vortex. Eyes shut tight with terror and prayer, they were flung off in a swift but low seaward trajectory, the craft skimming and skipping atop the water like a flat rock, breaking up with each hit before capsizing to a stop, the disintegrating floats absorbing the impact and crunch that would've fatally been imparted to the girls. Seized by shock for long dangerous seconds, they let go of the shattered metal seats just before they were dragged under with them. Kagami saw nearby Tsukasa and Miyuki clinging to the split pontoons like tiny floats, but no one else.

"Konata!! Konata!!" cried Kagami, anxiously splashing about for any sign then a blue head broke the surface, sputtering and flailing, and with a cry of angst Kagami beat water toward Konata whose life vest had been torn off by the wind.

"Konata! What's wrong??"

"L – L – Leg–!!" Konata sputtered between gulps.

"Leg cramp?? Then hold on to me!!"

Konata did more than that but practically tried to climb on the twin's head and kept pushing her under until Kagami managed to get a head-lock on the tiny panicked tomboy and stroked to the shattered float to the others. Kagami solicitously watched Konata gulp for breath beside her before their eyes met for an uncomfortably reassuring moment then Konata gave a thumbs-up.

"Look!" cried Tsukasa, pointing to a tiny rocky mound just breaking the surface several hundred meters away.

"Paddle!!" Kagami cried, their feet furiously beating water while they clung the platoon halves and after long minutes they crashed among the rounded boulders of a rocky bar that could scarcely be called an island, being even smaller than a tennis court with a center ten-foot mound of rubble and a 'shore' cluttered with driftwood and flotsam and bowling-ball sized clumps of seaweed.

"Everyone alright??" Kagami cried. "Anybody hurt?"

"Woe! Look at all my scratches!" whined Tsukasa at her skinned limbs.

Konata snickered. "Too bad a few broken bones didn't take your mind off all that!"

"Enough, Konata! It's a miracle we're all alive!"

"Yea, we can thank our lucky stars!...er, why you all looking me funny like that? But man, that was one mean Oz express! And check it out -- the sun's already breaking out, like that thing never even happened."

"You could've said thank you to Onee-chan, Kona-chan!" Tsukasa demurely chided.

"Forget it! I would've done it for anyone!" Kagami asserted with a shrug as though not expecting any such courteous thanks from Konata, or somehow timid of being reminded what she did with such passion and panic.

Konata opened her harelipped lips; "I –"

"Don't say anything, Konata. I don't need to hear anything that had to be prompted out of you!"

"I just wanted to say I didn't know you were such a great swimmer, Kagamin!"

Kagami sighed, "Well, you nearly took both us thrashing like that! Maybe now you'll learn to swim better instead of stuffing swim rings!"

"But you really cared about me! You didn't give up helping me even if you drowned! I'm touched! I haven't felt this way since we switched seats at the concert!"

Kagami blushed. "Look, I told you – I would've done it for anybody! Quit making such a big deal out of it!"

"No, this is a debt of honor that must be paid in full! – like any Maskon Knight to his comrades after getting his bacon pulled from the dragon fire! Kagami, for now on I'm your third twin slave!"

"Huh??" Tsukasa squeaked.

"You just ask or snap your fingers and I'll be there, Kagamin! Ask for the moon and the stars and I'll lay it at your feet! There ain't no mountain high enough or river wide enough to keep me from owing up to my best and bravest friend! Polish your shoes, wash your 'jammies, make your bed and warm it too, I'll do anything for you for the rest of our lives! Just ask!"

"Just doing your own homework would be enough!" stated Kagami to a suddenly frozen Konata and Kagami rolled her eyes. "I guess there is one high enough!" she snickered, turning to see Miyuki groping to her feet. "How you doing, Yuki-chan?"

"Not so good I'm afraid, Kagami-san. It seems I've lost my glasses!"

"Oh you poor thing!"

"If I squint hard enough I can make out shapes and faces, but then it starts to hurt."

"Well, there's lots of trash and sharp rocks around here for you to stub a toe on and get tetanus from, so maybe you ought just sit and stay put for now."

"Yes, I believe that's a prudent idea, Kagami-san. Thank you."

Konata groaned. "What a time to get gorgeous and meganekko-moe!"

"Konata, can't you ever be serious??"

"Just keeping our spirits high, Kagamin! You'd be surprised how well some blustery battle hymns can bring your team together when you're lost deep the black forest with Tiamat stalking you!"

"You know Konata, it's a good thing you're tiny so you'll fit the PS2 box you'll be buried in!" Kagami sourly quipped then looked around. "What kind of island is this anyway? It's more like a pile of rocks and garbage!"

"From what I'm able to squint, I believe this must be an outcrop of a barrier reef, not to be confused with the Barrier Reef in Australia," Miyuki surmised (background of banter piano jingle); "In the last months of World War Two, hundreds of boats of all types were scuttled and sunk atop sand bars, shallows and reefs along the coast to retard a main invasion from allied vessels and landing craft long enough to shell their positions from onshore artillery, though most of these obstacles were completely underwater and meant to gut the keel of any vessel. They even used garbage and debris left over from city fire bombings in these barriers as well, but over the decades tides have washed subsurface rocks and stones up on these outcrops that promotes reef building organisms, in addition to an assortment of flotsam and jetsam as you see mixed with seaweed of the Macrocystis pyrifera family, which hosts a variety of crustacean and invertebrate denizens –"

"Time out! Time out! We catch the drift, Miss Wiki-Tiki!" Konata sighed. "Geeze, feels like you just can't get away from education for love or money!"

"At least it's dry land!" Tsukasa said in relief, eying the mainland's shadowy mountains in the horizon. "I wonder how far we were blown away!"

"Well, by the way it looks when we took trips on the Niigata ferry, I'd say we're at least five miles from shore," Kagami declared, shaking her head. "Way too far to swim in our condition and these currents."

"Don't matter anyway; can't swim!" Konata said, "And neither can Yuki-chan, right, Yuki-chan?"

"I – no, no..." Miyuki admitted, suddenly fretfully touching below her neck as though missing something.

Waving her arms toward the distant bumpy horizon, Tsukasa asked. "Maybe someone can see us!"

"If you flap harder you might even be able to tell them yourself!" Konata quipped, cambering atop the mound and scouting the area. "Geese! Our backyard's bigger than this – and in Japan that's saying something! No way anyone on the beach's gonna spot us!"

"There're bound to be rescue boats and airplanes passing by!" Kagami said. "We have to signal them!"

"With what?"

"We can make a fire!" Tsukasa said and Konata snorted and gestured at the soaked driftwood; "Gotta match?"

Kagami piped in; "How about any mirrors? Or anything shiny?"

"Where??" Konata cackled, waving at their swimsuits; "Except for our teeth, forget it. How 'bout you, Yuki-chan? Any bright ideas? Yuki-chan? Miyuki!"

"Huh?? Oh, I'm – sorry. I...I...no," Miyuki vapidly answered as though disengaged from her reflex encyclopedic response while preoccupied in something infinitely more sober. "If this is indeed a barrier reef, I don't think any boats are going to come near this entire area for fear of running aground. It's bound to be on their nautical charts as an exclusion zone."

"Exclusion zone? That anything like the Twilight Zone??" Konata effused. "Just great! Just great!"

"Don't lose hope everybody! Someone will know we're missing and our folks are sure to send a search party!" Kagami said.

"But how long, Onee-chan??" whined Tsukasa.

"I – I dunno, Tsukasa. Depends on how badly the storm affected the mainland too I suppose. There might be lots of injuries for them to worry about first before they notice we're missing."

"Are you saying we might be here to sundown?"

"Tsukasa, we might be here to moonrise."

"Yo, I didn't truck any Girl Scout gear!" Konata said.

"So we'll just have to rough it till they search for us – unless you whip out your UFO radio to get us picked up on the next saucer!" Kagami quipped, spotting Miyuki moving away and looking around almost anxiously. Sympathizing, Kagami stooped by her.

"Don't be down, Yuki-chan. I'm sorry Konata dragged you into this, but we'll get out of this! You'll see."

"I – I hope so, Kagami-san," Miyuki half-whispered, looking about with foreboding. "I – I don't like this place."

"Join the club!"

"You don't understand. I feel – feel..."

"Feel what, Yuji-chan?"

"I...I..." The pink-blond shook her head. "Forget it."

"Tell us!"

"No, I – I'll wait. Maybe a plane or helicopter might spot us in time."

"In time? What do you mean 'in time'?" asked Kagami and Miyuki blushed and fumbled.

"Uh, er –I meant...meant before we – we run out of fresh water."

"Here's a 4-11 for you, hawkeye; we ain't got ANY fresh water to run out of!" Konata quipped.

"Uh, then – there might be sealed bottles or cans of potable liquids in all this flotsam, and the bottoms of some might be polished to shine sunlight to a plane overhead, and some of this seaweed could be spread to dry in the sun to act as blankets at night, according to the Civil Air Patrol ditching survival tactics manual."

Kagami nodded and petted Miyuki's shoulder. "Now that's the most constructive and encouraging thing I've heard all day! Way to go, Yuki-chan!"

"Yea!" Tsukasa perked, heartened. "Boy, Gilligan's Island sure could've used you, Yuki-chan!"

Humbled Konata blurted; "Hey! If you wanna hear survival tactics, try being buck-naked up a windy mountain peak, all alone up to your butt fighting off hordes of acid-spittin' bug-eyed Deltrax warriors with poison-tipped spears who are all pissed at you just because you flipped their ugly princess!!..."

**- - -**

For the rest of the afternoon between scanning the skies, Konata and Kagami rummaged the littered shore for plastic bottles and odd trash to pass empty soda and tea cans off to Miyuki and Tsukasa who polished their bottoms as little mirrors while tossing stones at crabs out to nibble their toes.

"Somebody's gotta stand watch while the others sleep or we'll be eaten alive!" Tsukasa rued, a fresh dismay to sob in Kagami's lap while Miyuki sat apart, gazing at the setting sun. She started as Kagami gently touched her shoulder.

"It'll get chilly at night out here. I think we should sleep huddled together for warmth, okay?"

Miyuki looked up then shook her head. "I – I'm sorry, Kagami-san, but I can't do that."

"Don't worry, I'll be between you and Konata."

"It's not that. It's -- It's something else."

"Why not? Look, I know you're scared and frightened, Yuki-chan, but I've never seen you this down."

Miyuki looked up with a pondering look, reluctant and skittish, then she sighed.

"I – I feel something...coming from this mound..." Miyuki fretfully admitted.

"Feel something? What?"

Miyuki chewed her cute lower lip and looked around. "It – It feels like weak sunlight, but it's not."

"What feels like sunlight?" asked Kagami and Miyuki lowered her head, contemplating something both too private to ever share to anyone living but sighing in resignation.

"Al – Alpha radiation."

"Radiation??" the other three chorused.

"It's not enough to hurt you all, but it's just enough to...to...affect me."

"Affect just you? How? More to the point, how could you know if it were so?"

Miyuki demurred. "I – can, that's all,"

"Radiation??" Konata scoffed. "How can there be any here anyway?"

"I was pondering that for the last few hours, and I believe that this barrier reef part just happens to also be comprised of debris and rubble from old clock and watch factories that were destroyed during the war."

"Clocks and watches??" Konata said, rolling eyes at an as quizzical Kagami.

"Yes. In the pre-war era it was common practice to use radium paint for the dials and hands to make them glow at night, but the practice was stopped shortly after the war because the concern of radiation hazard to the workers."

"You're saying we're sitting on all the stuff they used for that?" Kagami said with not a little muted skepticism.

"Yes. Mild alpha emissions, tingling me all over, so it's – beginning," she grimly uttered.

"What's beginning??"

Miyuki looked up with violet eyes more pressured by dread to admit than wanting to; "I – I have a confession to make so that none of you are frightened in case – in case we're not rescued in time."

"'In time'? What do you mean?"

"It's – so very difficult for me to say this because you're all genuinely my friends. In fact, the best I ever had. You make me truly feel like I'm one of you."

"You ARE one of us, Miyuki!"

"No...not – really..."

"Get with it, Yuki-chan!"

"Uh, yes, sorry. You see, it's rather hard to explain."

"Try it! Most the time it's hard understanding you anyway!"

With a hesitant pause, Miyuki waved over herself. "You see, this is not – not actually my true natural self."

"You mean you were once a flat-chested geek?"

"Konata!" chided Kagami. "Go on, Yuki-chan."

"No, I understand. This – might sound fantastically and totally incredible and unreal to you, but...you see...I ...my family...we're ...actually...actually..."

"Actually what?" prodded Kagami with familiar exasperation and Miyuki held her breath and turned aside..

"Mantisoids."

Konata snorted. "What's your religion got to do with it?"

"It's not our faith. It's what we – are."

"Are? What do you mean?"

"See, we're – originally from a different world sixty-nine decimal four light-years away, called Fzwjqlcbvx."

"Man, even my harelip can't curl up double 'nuff to say that, less spell it! 'Different world'?"

"Yes. Very different, though we've been living and hatching on Earth so long that we almost regard ourselves as dual-citizens."

"'Hatch'??" Konata asked.

"Er, yes, we chose to propagate in our native state instead of in our human forms to help keep our species identity."

"I – see..." Kagami said with wary gentleness. "You're saying that – that you're really some kind of – alien?"

"Awesome!" Konata blurted, starry-eyed.

"Oh, we don't really feel like we're 'aliens' since we've been here for over seven hundred centuries when a – a colony of us were left here."

"Seven hundred centuries??" Konata blurted. "And all that time you all were living here and eating here and having fun and doing jobs no one else wants to do and nobody never caught on that you're aliens??"

"No, in our human form we're totally undetectable."

"Of course..." Kagami politely concurred, touching over Miyuki's head. "Er, does it hurt anywhere here like after sensei wakes Konata in class?"

"I know how it must sound to you, but it's important you understand what's going to happen if I'm exposed any longer to this alpha radiation."

"Well, just what does it do?" asked Konata, rapt at a good story.

"You see, it could trigger my cells to lose their induced metamorphized state."

Puzzled Tsukasa asked. "But you left your cell in our beach hotel!"

Kagami rolled her eyes. "She means body cells! Go on Yuki-chan!"

"I'll simplify it," Miyuki said. (background of banter piano jingle) "See, a Mantisoid's cells contain a dual unused DNA element which can be programmed with the DNA pattern of other life forms by way of a device called the metamorphic-trans-stator. This way, our cellular structure can assume the physiology of any other mass-compatible life-form, much how like the cells of a caterpillar are rearranged into a butterfly, but at a greatly accelerated level without causing damaging heat or cellular confusion and without affecting our mnemonic structures."

Tsukasa uttered; "'Oh.'"

Konata was starry-eyed with video-game fascination. "Cool! So not even our school nurse or your dentist can tell you're any different, uh?" she asked while Miyuki and Tsukasa winced.

"Only deep DNA analysis, although metamorphization isn't perfect and there are often tiny flaws, like bad eyesight and weak teeth and slight cerebral deficits like clumsiness and pink hair."

"Figures! So you're saying that this radium radiation can undo all that – stuff?"

"Yes, it could mimic the same radiation frequencies the metamorphic trans-stator's Zelta crystal uses and by ionization deactivate our programmed dual DNA element, in which case our native one reasserts itself to reshape our natural physiology."

"Zelta crystal! Cool!" Konata said while Kagami smirked at her. "So, what do you 'Mantisoid' dudes really look like, uh?"

Miyuki demurred. "This will sound strange, Konata-san, but I can't entirely recall right now."

"Can't remember what you look like??" asked Kagami with a tinge of concern.

"Oh I will little by little till I'm – fully de-morphed. See, amnesia is a safety measure that keeps us from unwittingly exposing our true selves, and our Mantisoid subconscious only kicks in full awareness for mating and emergencies as this."

"Man, that sounds like it'd make one awesome dating sim!"

"Konata, shut-up! Miyuki –" Kagami asked with almost ginger softness. "Er. Yuki-chan, we're getting off this pile, you know that, right? We'll be back in school before you know it!"

"But suppose not in time??" Miyuki ruefully sighed at the setting sun. "This outcrop is far too small for you all to hide, so – meeting me can't be avoided. But whatever you see, I won't hurt you – I swear to you. As – as horrible as I might look."

Konata quipped at Miyuki's form. "If that's 'horrible' I'd be happy with being just bad anytime!"

"If you're frightened I'll understand, and even though Mantisoids are instinctively savage fighters, I won't hurt you if you attack me out of fear, I promise."

Kagami gently patted Miyuki's shoulder and very, very gently said; "I understand, Yuki-chan. You can sleep alone if you wish, but if you feel chilly come into our huddle, okay?"

"You're so kind, Kagami-san. I'm so happy we were friends!"

Kagami nodded and left Miyuki's side and gestured the others aside and Konata clucked; "O Wow! Isn't that hyper-awesome! Miyuki-san's really an alien! I always knew the truth was out here somewhere! Just never thought it'd been THIS close!"

"You little ditz! Can't you tell??" Kagami harshly whispered, "Yuki-chan's lost it! She's fantasizing in fear to escape the reality of what's happening to us!"

"You really think so??" Tsukasa asked and Kagami rolled her eyes to keep from whacking her.

"I'm afraid so. She's been buried in books so long that she doesn't know how to handle a crisis in the real world so she's retreated into a safe fantasy world."

"But Kona-chan seems alright."

"I guess because video games fight back and books don't!"

"Hey!" Konata rebuffed. "Sims can prepare you for the real world! Ask any airplane pilot!"

"I'm sure JAL doesn't use Mintendo!" Kagami wryly said.

**- - -**

Come dawn, Tsukasa's shriek of terror woke Kagami and Konata's spooning cuddle for warmth as she ran back besides her startled sister, much to Konata's smirk of exasperation as she quickly drew her sly busy warm palm back to her side.

"Tsukasa!" Kagami cried, partly relieved by a legitimate excuse to stop feigning sleep and ignorance of groping strokes through half the night. "What's wrong??"

Shuddering in stark terror, Tsukasa was barely able to speak. "I – I – I went behind th – th – the hill to take a cra– er, to – to go to th – th– the bathroom and saw – a – a – !!"

"What 'a', Tsukasa?"

"A – A big bug lying back there!"

Kagami's purple eyes rolled. "A bug?"

"A BIG bug, Onee-chan!! Big as a house!!"

Vexed Konata snickered. "House?? You couldn't hide a car back there! Look, I'll kick it back into the drink so that you can go back there to take your sweet time unloading one so me and Kaggie could – er, get some sleep!" she muttered while Kagami blushed as she sauntered to the mound.

"No Kona-chan!" Tsukasa shrieked. "Don't go back there!!"

Konata disappeared behind the mound . "HOLY CRAP!!" came her yell only moments ahead of her tearing right back. "Holy friggin' turds of Mars!!"

"What?" Kagami cried.

"It's a huge friggin' IT!"

"What??"

"Said there's a BIG friggin' IT lying back there! Like a bad transform 'tween a beetle and a lobster!"

"I've seen big beetles before."

"Taller than you??"

"Oh no!!" Tsukasa glanced about in dismay. "Where's Yuki-chan??"

"She's gone!" Konata said. "Shoot! She must've seen it first and took off!"

"She can't swim, remember??"

"Shoot – I'd be a fast learner!"

"Besides, it's way too far to swim back! It's too far and cold, and she'd – she'd drown!"

"Or maybe it's – it's eaten her!" Tsukasa wailed. "Poor poor Yuki-chan!!"

They gasped to see a mottled green triangular head with two huge compound eyes and grossly operating mouth parts rise from behind the rocky mound, spindly and taller than a man and looking like a furry praying mantis with four rear legs and two long spiny forearms tipped with serrated claws.

"Omigosh!!" Kagami cried after her piercing scream, witlessly signing the cross over her chest before Tsukasa seized her tight.

"We're doomed! Just like poor Yuki-chan!" Tsukasa sobbed while Konata scrambled for a piece of driftwood with protruding rusty nails as a club.

"Aw man! Where's Gort when you really need him??"

The creature canted its head like it noticed Tsukasa's distress and looked around and saw a large flat gray rock and scraped the sharp tip of one of its claws over the slate-like surface.

Kagami cried; "What's it doing?"

"Sharpening its claws!" Tsukasa wailed and Konata brandished her nail-spiked makeshift club.

"Well, a couple of whacks from this and it'll need a school-full of tetanus shots!"

"Don't go near it, Kona-chan!!" cried Tsukasa as Konata warily moved toward the beast.

"Can't let'em see you're scared or they'll pounce you, ladies! A mock offense is always the best defense! I can handle this! Just like the Zerkons!"

"Konata, this isn't any game!!" scolded a terrified Kagami, "That thing's big as a bear and those claws!"

"Claws. Right..." Konata paused then looked around and grabbed flotsam cans and bottles and pitched them at the beast.

Tsukasa cried; "Stop! You'll only make it mad!"

"Hey, better than burping!" Konata replied, throwing rapid-fire power-underhand pitches that rained trash at the ducking thing which to their surprise started backing up into the water. "Alright! No sweat! Got it on the swim!!"

"Be careful, you lil' idiot!" Kagami cried.

"Chill, princesses! Your blue knight's got everything under control! Yea! Easy tank! Bad looks and no bite! And you're gonna owe me big time, Kagamin!"

"Owe you? How?"

"Can't say now. There're minors listening!"

"Huh??" squeaked Tsukasa.

"Yea! Let's do some surfin' freak! Man! This ugly's one real wimp!!"

Noticing how Konata's missiles were bouncing off the beast's shell, Kagami wondered aloud; "That's not really hurting it! So why isn't it coming after us?"

"Maybe it's – it's full!" Tsukasa bemoaned, huddling with Kagami while Konata, effecting a giant knight, moved closer to hurtle even larger trash.

"Who cares! We got it on the run!" Konata cackled. "Yea! Go 'back the black lagoon, ya freak!"

"Just don't get too close!" warned Kagami, but slightly encouraged to see the beast floundering waist-deep in the water. "You know what? I don't think it can swim either!"

"Right! Maybe I can push off far enough so it'll drown!"

Kagami wondered. "But that doesn't make any sense, it can't swim! How else did it get here??"

"Maybe it came outta a cave from all that reef junk under us or fell off a meteor or a mother-ship or something, who knows? I don't know where it came from but I sure know where it's going!"

The beast waded along the tiny reef like it was looking for another landing but Konata's missles weren't having anything of that keeping it at bay. Kagami eased Tsukasa off and joined Konata in pitching stones, and Tsukasa, with morbid curiosity, wandered apart and looked at the flat rock the beast was scratching upon and surprise gripped her. "Uh??"

"What is it?" Kagami said.

"I – I dunno! It – looks like an 'M'!"

"Just scratches that look that way, Tsukasa."

"No, take a look! It's awesome penmanship!"

"Penmanship??"

"Yes! Even better than yours, Onee-chan! It spells M...I...Y...U..."

Kagami gasped. "No! Can't be!"

Noticing Kagami's surprise the giant mantis nodded and emitted a piercing whistle sound.

"Hey! Where's my backup??" Konata yelled as Kagami broke off to join Tsukasa and inspect the stone.

Kagami shook her head in bewilderment; "I – I – don't know. But it looks like it was trying to write – Miyuki!"

"What?? Naw, that's a fluke of scribble!"

"I wish your scribble looked half this good! In fact – if I didn't know better, it almost looks like...like...Miyuki's writing!"

"Now you're crazy as a cow!!" Konata blurted and gasped and jumped back as the beast dashed ashore to grab some seaweed balls and kicked its four legs high and waved both claws in a odd rocking dance.

"What's it doing??" Tsukasa cried.

"Maybe it dances before before it dines, like the Slug-Men of Gothos!" Konata said.

"That – That rhythm! Those steps!" Kagami scratched her chin. "You know...the way it's bouncing around and swinging its claws, it's almost like it's – it's doing our OP!"

Konata snickered. "Be serious, Kagami! Geeze, imagine ME saying that!"

"Look closely, stupid! How it's kicking its legs and shaking those seaweed balls like pom-poms! It's doing our dance!"

"Com'on!"

"She's right, Kona-chan!" Tsukasa gushed in awe. "It's got our beat down pat – and without any rehearsal!"

"Naw, it's a fluke! It wasn't on our line-up, so how would it know??"

Kagami groped the most incredible thought. "It's almost like...like it's trying to tell us that...that..."

"That what, Onee-Chan?"

"That maybe – what Miyuki said was – is true! About her – really being an alien. Maybe it – it really is Miyuki!!"

The beast stopped dancing and vehemently nodded. Konata snickered;

"What?? You crazy??"

"Why not? You were lapping up her story like a starved sow before!"

"Yea, but there's not a stitch of moe in that thing!"

"So how do you explain it doing a routine that'd put the Rockettes to shame?"

"All it means is when it chowed down Miyuki that it also absorbed her brains and memory like the Slug Overlords can–!"

Tsukasa wailed and started climbing the tiny rubble mound behind them.

"–In which case we can't trust a thing it does!!"

"Look Konata, I have a gut feeling that it could've put you away faster than a goldfish getting sucked by a sumo wrestler! And if you recall, Yuki-chan was on night-watch last night so it could've jumped her without breaking a sweat and the rest of us would've been easy pickings, so why weren't we?"

"You're gonna tell me the ultimate moe's a big bug??" snickered Konata, facing the beast while brandishing her driftwood club. "If it's really you, Miyuki, say something!"

Kagami snickered. "If it could talk, it would've long ago! Not surprising what that – that mouth thing."

Suddenly Tsukasa's footing atop the mound slipped and she cried out, starting to tumble on the sharp rocks when the beast dashed forward and caught her in its cupped claws.

Tsukasa's eyes went wide then lights out. "Ohhhhh!..." She fainted.

"Tsukasa!!" Kagami screamed, grabbing a rock and pelted the beast. "Let her go! Put her down!!" she screamed but the beast was cradling Tsukasa in its fore-claws while one tip of one claw delicately touched Tsukasa's forehead.

"Shit! It's gonna suck her brains like 'Starship Troopers'!" yelled Konata, swinging her driftwood club but the beast dodged then splashed some sea-water on Tsukasa's face whose eyes fluttered open and she cringed, but less from fear than surprise as the beast released her on her feet and backed off.

"Get away from her you bastard!!" Konata cried, hurtling another rock but Tsukasa jumped in her way.

"No! Stop that!"

"What's wrong with you!"

"It is Yuki-chan! I can – feel it!"

"What – like ESP?"

"I dunno! The way it touched me. Like Yuki-chan does when she's trying to soothe you when you're down!"

"You'll be down it's hatch if you believe that! It might be a trick!!"

"No! It is! The way it touched me, it was just like Miyuki!" Tsukasa gingerly walked up to the beast.

"Tsukasa!!" Kagami cried out.

"I – I'm sorry I'm so afraid, Yuki-chan!" Tsukasa gently and sheepishly said and the mantis bowed low before her, and speechless, Kagami moved up besides her.

"No, I – I can't believe this!"

"It's true, Onee-chan! It's Yuki-chan! She won't hurt us! She wouldn't hurt a fly!"

"You mean she wasn't out of her head with that – that alien story??" Kagami said, not to bested by Tsukasa's courage standing up to the beast, easily within its reach but it showed no threatening moves. Indeed, it was even bowing to each of them and making claw gestures.

Incredulous and grimacing from a gross sight, Kagami shook her head. "I – I can't believe it! Come over here, Konata!"

"Yea, well I'll take my chances!"

Kagami snorted. "Some great video warrior! Don't ever expect me to be anyone's bride!"

"Bride??" Tsukasa baffled squeaked but Konata winced like her pride had been slighted and she warily moved up with the two and the beast found another flat stone to scratch in elegant cursive writ which Kagami read; "'I'm sorry you were so frightened. I profusely apologize.'"

"Yea, that's Miyuki alright!" Konata clucked. "Can't believe it! The ultimate moe princess's really a big bug! Man, you went to the wrong school! You ought join the S.O.S. Brigade!"

"I wouldn't blame her for sucking your brains out some!" Kagami snickered then fell abashed and squeamishly apologized to the Mantisoid. "I – I'm sorry, Yuki-chan. I – I mean –"

"Try not to puke, Kagami!" quipped Konata. "I can't believe this! A real live alien was hanging around us all this time, and we couldn't tell the difference!" she japed and noticed Kagami's wry look, "Don't say anything!"

Tsukasa nodded in jittery fascination. "No wonder Miyuki's so smart! She's an alien!"

"I'm sure it has a lot more to do with studying hard –!" Kagami chided then glanced over at Konata "– and doing homework!"

A high pitched whistling sound like clicks emitted from the beast.

"What was that??"

"If I didn't know better, I'd say it was laughing!" Tsukasa said with a chuckle then contritely caught herself. "Oh! I mean 'she' was laughing, not 'it', sorry Yuki-chan."

The Mantisoid started scratching on a flat rock in lovely cursive script; "It says, 'you must leave quickly'.

"Isn't there any other way to change you back??" Tsukasa desperately asked and got a scratched answer she read; "'Meta-morphizer at home. Call mom."

"Sure, but how??" Kagami asked and the Mantisoid spun to a pile of dry driftwood, and with its claws acting as pliers and hammers, it plucked the rusty nails out to re-bang them together into planks and in five minutes created a crude raft resting on pieces of shattered pontoons and plastic jugs full of air, and its claws snipped oars from some planks like scissors.

Konata was impressed. "Awesome! No wonder you scored a hundred at the science fair!"

"But there's not enough room for all of us!" Tsukasa noticed and the Mantisoid canted its head in a way that touched Kagami's heart. "Miyuki! You're not coming??"

"How can she?" Kagami wondered aloud with sudden concern; "If anyone sees – her like that, Godzilla would be jealous of the panic scene!"

Konata nodded. "And knowing Cousin Yui, the cops will shoot first and ask questions later."

"But – we can't just leave her out here like this, Onee-chan!"

Konata walked behind the Mantisiod. "Hey! These folded wings too? Can you fly? Maybe you can get help!"

A claw scratched a flat stone which Kagami read. "Air too thin on Earth to fly."

"Great! All dressed up and no where to go!"

Scratch. Scratch. "She says, 'you must leave now'."

"Why do I feel rushed??" Konata asked. "I want off this rock bad as the next guy, but it's like you can't wait to get rid of us!"

The Mantisoid paused then – Scratch, Scratch on a flat stone which Kagami read; "'Reverting to basic instincts. Can't control it. Go. Quickly.'"

Tsukasa asked, "Can't control it'? What's that mean?"

"If that's anything like real mantises, suddenly I don't wanna know!" Konata quipped with sincere trepidation, suddenly noticing the mantis trembling slightly. "Hey, what's wrong?"

Scratch. Scratch; "'Hot. Sun."

"Are you saying you're drying out?" asked Kagami.

Scratch. Scratch; "'No shade.'"

"Or you'll bake like a lobster in its shell?" Konata quipped.

Kagami grimaced; "Boy, Konata, you can sure overdose on some tact! Yuki-chan, can't you swim and cool off?"

Scratch scratch scratch; "She says – 'Sea water toxic! Weakens more.'"

Konata snickered. "No, it ain't! Polluted maybe, but not toxic yet!"

"For it – er, her it is!" Kagami said. "No wonder she had a thing against being underwater!"

Tsukasa was fretful. "But what'll we do? There's no shade here!"

"Then we gotta make some for her! We must!" Kagami said.

"But how??"

Mulling this, Konata spotted Miyuki's bikini parts on the rocks and snatched them up. "I got it!" she cried. "Do like a banana and peel!"

"What??"

"We can put them together as a covering over Miyuki-It!"

Kagami snorted. "Kidding? There's barely enough between us to cover it's – her head! Including that sick garment you're wearing!"

"Seaweed!" Tsukasa cried. "We can cover her with seaweed like a blanket too!"

"Yea! Like a clambake!" Konata agreed then bit her tongue and sheepishly apologized; "Er, sorry, Yuki-chan."

The girls shed their clothing and ripped into them flat tied into a shawl, and Kagami half-shut her eyes and fought against cringing as she draped them around the Mantisoid's bowed furry head and huge faceted eyes which she sensed noticed her grimacing face.

"Sorry, Yuki-chan," Kagami apologized and Konata cackled; "Yea, like even insects under a magnifying glass gross her out!"

The Mantisoid motioned at the raft and a claw gave Konata a rough shove toward it. "Aw right, aw right, don't get pushy! I don't need any incentive getting off this rock; radiation hasn't done my height or mom's family any favors from way back! We'll be back with your ma in no time! I miss your moe already!"

Naked as jaybirds, Konata and Kagami and Tsukasa climbed onto the raft and the Mantisoid gave it a massive push out.

"We'll be back quick, Yuji-chan! Promise!!" Tsukasa cried, paddling with the improvised oars toward shore.

Konata shook her head. "Man, this so weird! We're all angst up over an oversized bug-lobster!"

"Miyuki's inside that – alien!" Kagami snapped with a slight shiver. "Really! For someone used to battling next to bizarre creatures in video games I'd thought you'd be more tolerant!"

"Yes, like Onee-chan!" Tsukasa chimed in; "I never thought I'd live to see the day she'd even touch anything looking like a bug, forget a huge one!"

Kagami blushed then faced the island. "It's – she looks – gross, true...but I feel for her. Poor Yuki-chan's probably more terrified than I am, all alone and sacrificing herself so we can save ourselves."

"Huh? What do you mean, Onee-chan?"

"She's baking in the sun and starving herself to keep us safe! She's starting to 'revert', remember? Maybe she starts forgetting she's human and acts more – savage like her kind. I bet that's why she wanted us out in a hurry."

"If she starts forgetting she's Yuki-chan, will she be the same when we come back with help?"

"I'm sure her mom will know what to do!" Konata shook her head. "Unreal! Her ditzy mom's really like that too?? Man, but in some weird way that makes her even extra-moe than before!"

Tsukasa excitedly said; "I can't wait for her to change back so I can really ask her things! How long do you think it'll take for us to reach shore?" she asked and Kagami scouted the horizon.

"It might take a half a day at this rate. Then grabbing a bus to a train home –"

"And buying threads first!" Konata chimed.

"Oh, yea, forgot about that. But all be told, it'll be dark before we get home, so we couldn't get back till morning."

"Couldn't we get help to go faster?" asked Tsukasa. "Maybe the police can help!"

"Who in their right mind would believe us, Tsukasa?"

"Yea, they'll think we're just more kids on crack!" Konata said.

"But that's a long time for her to be alone like that..." Tsukasa murmured aloud toward the receding reef. "Hope no one finds her. Like, a hunter or a fisherman..."

Kagami thought with a shudder. "Who have knives and spears..."

"And guns and harpoons..."

They exchanged looks.

"Paddle faster! Hurry!!"

They landed on the rocky shore the beast stood looked perplexed. "You're coming with us, E-T!" Konata snapped.

"But how??" Tsukasa said, gesturing the bed-sized raft.

"Slam a couple more more pieces of driftwood on the raft and she lies down and we sit on her like a sleeping pony!"

"What??"

The Mantisoid vehemently shook its head and Kagami moved up before it and held her stomach down as she held its spiny claws. "We know why you want us out of here. But we're friends and friends don't desert another! You're coming with us, Yuki-chan else we're staying here!"

Tsukasa and Konata exchanged looks but said nothing.

"We know what that means too. Yuki-chan, and you wouldn't want that. Especially knowing how Konata must taste. They'll be lots to eat on-shore, so help us with the raft, Yuki-chan!"

"Yes!" Tsukasa insisted. "Your love's way stronger than any instincts to eat us!!"

The nonplussed Mantisoid suddenly reared up with vehement hissing and shrieking and menacingly brandished its snapping claws but the trio stood firm and it settled down in resignation and the others breathed easier.

Konata nodded. "Okay, now that that's outta your system, let's get started!"

Resigned, the beast turned and made short work of pounding additional driftwood planks to the raft, including some buoyant plastic bottles and Styrofoam blocks then slumped on all fours like in exhaustion.

"Miyuki!!" the Hiiragi cried, startled as the Mantisoid's forearms lightly touched each their foreheads and suddenly, ghostily superimposed the Mantisoid's form, was a totally bare Miyuki – or rather her twin brother as was made plain uncovered by only ear-length pink hair.

Tsukasa cried. "Yuki-chan!! Uh...Mi – Miyuki??"

"Creating this mental projection of my self-image saps my strength even more, but I must talk sense to you!" the boy's soft echoey voice issued inside their heads. "You're in great danger from my Mantisoid instincts in my natural form."

Kagami asked, "But – who – who are you?"

"Miyuki."

"But – But – you're a – a boy??"

The boy suddenly looked familiarly sheepish. "Um...er...I...er..."

"Don't tell me!" Konata cried, shaking her head. "You're not only really a big bug-lobster alien – you're a boy one too! Geeze! Talk about two for two! Man, Haruhi would go crazy meeting you!"

"Konata!" Kagami chided.

Tsukasa abashedly turned her face. "Uh, can't – you look like a girl again?"

Boy-Miyuki shook his head; "That shift takes much more concentration, because when Mantisoids assume alien physical forms it's coupled with their native brain states as well."

"You mean when you're Yuki-chan you're also a girl in mind too?" Kagami asked.

Konata asked. "But if you're really a boy – bug, why are you posing as a girl?"

"Uh, that's a little complicated to explain now, but I must correct you if you think that I'm just 'posing' as Miyuki, because in human form we don't know we're really Mantisoid so we won't accidentally reveal ourselves."

Kagami nodded. "That amnesia thing again?"

"It allows us to live incognito among humans as humans without fear of accidental exposure, except in emergencies when our Mantisoid subconsciousness emerges when we're about to de-morph."

"Like for mating?" Konata reminded and the projected boy blushed.

"Er, yes, and for being laid."

"Laid??"

"He means as an egg, Konata!" Kagami chided. "They're hatched, remember?"

Tsukasa mulled aloud; "Gee. That must've been rough on your mother!"

"No, we're in our native form for laying and mating, but outside that I was raised like any other human by a human family which doesn't know anything about its own truth except for our subconscious. Please understand, my human self would be just as surprised of my truth as you were."

Kagami nodded, somewhat pleased beyond relief. "I see! So in a way, you're still the same Miyuki we know whether you were born human or hatched because you – she doesn't know she's an alien, right?"

"You mean there's no difference at all even though Yuki-chan's really a bug and a boy??" Tsukasa asked.

"No, not if even her own family didn't even know they were Mantisoids, Tsukasa! Alien truth or human, she'd still been the same kind and clumsy Yuki-chan we know and love either way!"

Konata snapped her fingers. "Ultra-cool! I knew Miyuki was way too moe to fake – much less by any guy!"

Tsukasa wondered. "So you're saying when you change back to normal –"

"She IS normal now, Tsukasa!"

"I mean – when you get to change back into Yuki-chan, you won't remember any of this at all?"

"No," Boy-Miyuki said, "It'll be like it never happened – and you mustn't ever tell me. But I'm only sorry you all will know. It'll probably change how you feel about me forever, huh?"

"I can't see why!" Kagami issued. "Believe me, there're kids in school with family lives way more bizarre than your truth!" she said, glancing at Konata. "No, Miyuki, I'm glad I know your awesome truth. It's made me face my fears and bias and humility."

"Thank you. You're such stubborn but loyal friends. But I'd really feel much better if you left now."

"Miyuki, stop acting like an ass and save your strength! We're trying to help you!"

"You won't hurt us, Yuki-chan! Even if you don't mean to!" Tsukasa asserted.

"Yea!" Konata chimed in; "Your heart's too gentle and you're way too brainy to let the dark side take over! Just concentrate! Concentrate! Concentrate!"

"Who are you, Svengali??" Kagami chided. "Yuki-chan wouldn't even slap a mosquito, and I know that compassion runs deep, so I trust her!"

Tsukasa ran over and hugged the beast. "Come Yuki-chan!!"

Boy-Miyuki sighed; "Very well. Maybe I can hold off till we land so I can nibble a bear or a deer..."

"WHAT??" the twins chorused while Konata clucked with rabid anticipation.

"But even if we do make land, the authorities will grab me soon as we do and lock me up down some secret lab under a thousand microscopes and needles and drills, then all Earth will know we're here and set panic for a witch hunt to exterminate us."

Tsukasa cringed; "Drills?? Oh no! we MUST save you from that!!"

"Don't worry, we won't let that happen, Yuki-chan. Promise!" Kagami asserted. "We'll go ashore somewhere far from people and call your mom in secret and wait!"

"If we're not picked up for indecent exposure first, Kagamin!"

Boy-Miyuki sighed. "Unfortunately. mother will only think you're teasing."

Konata snickered. "Com'on, she can't be all that ditzy!"

"No, I meant she doesn't know."

Kagami groaned; "That amnesia thing again?"

"Only my native sight or smell can trigger her Mantisoid subconscious and awareness, nothing more."

"But – you told us to call your mother when we reached shore before! Yuki-chan...you – you – lied??" Kagami blurted with astonishment bordering shock.

"You said that so we wouldn't stay here with you, didn't you?" Tsukasa said, tears dripping. "Oh Yuki-chan, you're so – so unselfish!–!!"

Konata shrugged. "Hey, no change of plans! We'll just phone her mom to pick us up because we ran out of money and when she takes a peek at you, problem solved – except for strapping you to the top of the car."

Almost sheepishly, Boy-Miyuki shook his head. "Uh...we can't do that."

"Don't worry. We'll lash ya down tight."

"No, I mean meet."

"Why the hell not??"

"See...I'm not Miyuki now. I'm a boy."

"So?" Konata shrugged, "You're her son now. Kinda. Like Harisu in reverse."

"I mean I'm a male Mantisoid now."

"So what?"

"She'll smell my scent."

"She'll get over it too."

"You don't understand, Kono-chan. She'll – start to revert her native form in kind unless the trans-stator's nearby – and she won't know about that unless she's first aware of me in this form."

"Uh?? But what difference does it make?"

"Uh...see, Mantisiods don't – have the same – social order humans have..."

"What are you trying to say?" asked Kagami the abashed image.

"That...our species, in its evolution to survive if reduced to small numbers, doesn't – er, acknowledge parentage or offspring in our native states as procreative... limits..."

"Huh??" the three chorused, thoroughly bewildered, and Boy-Miyuki sighed and faced Konata.

"It's like – the old 'Lensmen' pulp series," he cryptically uttered with abashed softness and Konata's puzzled frown vanished with surprise and amazement;

"WHOA!! Kiddin??"

"No, that's about it."

"Geeze! And Kagamin thinks I'M kinky! You sure my dad's not one of you all??"

"What? What??" asked Kagami and Konata whispered in her ear and blushing Kagami's jaw dropped in appall; "No!!"

"What? What??" Tsukasa asked, leaning an ear but the two others shook heads.

"Er, I'll explain later once we get on shore. Your innocence's precious to me, Tsukasa," Kagami demurred, hurriedly turning to Boy-Miyuki; "Uh, er – well, how about others like you? Are there any in these parts who can help?"

"They would – but we don't know or could tell another either."

"Great!" Konata said. "We'd need a stealth cloak to sneak you home like this!"

"There MUST be a way!" Tsukasa cried, slapping palms together to pray.

Kagami sighed. "Tsukasa, answers like that don't fall from the sky! We have to think!"

The boy and Mantisoid's heads perked. "That's it! She's right!"

"Who?"

"There might be a chance!"

"Chance? What chance?"

"The Zelta crystals which energizes our metamorphizer trans-stators can also be found as trace particles in meteorites. If my form were exposed to even those it might stimulate my dual DNA's human pattern just enough to re-morph as human for a very short period."

Kagami asked; "Short period – like long enough to throw you in back of a cab?"

Konata snorted; "Man, that's gonna be some fare if the cabbie stays in the car!"

"Really, Konata!"

"Just thinkin'! So you mean, you'll be able to be Miyuki again?"

"Only for a very short while and likely only partially so."

"But passable, right?" asked Kagami to a nodding head.

Konata was starry-eyed; "Awesome! Man, this is one henshin I can't miss! From bug to babe! But where are we gonna find any star rocks??"

They all sighed with dismay.

"Wait! I know where!" Tsukasa cried, falling abashed at their startled looks. "Pebbles from Heaven!"

Konata blinked. "Pebbles from Heaven?"

Brightening, Kagami snapped her fingers. "But of course! Pebbles from Heaven!"

"Er, clue me in, Kagamin?"

"See, often meteorites are kept as sacred objects and charms in shrines! There's bound to be a few shrines along our way back home!"

Konata balked, "Wait! You mean we might have to hike and hitch and shrine hop back home 'tween switching him – er, her, er – it – whatever, back and forth like this all the way??"

"It's called 'love', Kona-chan!" Kagami chided with a smirk. "We'll have to call our parents and tell them that we're okay and that we won't be home for a few days so they don't send out anyone to search for us."

"But what do we say??" Tsukasa asked and the two others shrugged.

"I guess we'll have to dream up one on the way to shore," Kagami said, facing Boy-Miyuki. "We promise you, Yuki-chan, we'll get you home and take your secret to the grave! Right, Tsukasa?"

"Right on, Onee-chan!"

"Right, Konata?"

"Uhh..."

"Konata!!"

"Just thinking 'bout movie rights! Alright, alright, I won't say a thing...except how can you morph to twice Yuki-chan's size and just how many Mantisoids are here and just how savage are your instincts and just why are you all REALLY here and–"

"Don't answer manga-mind, Miyuki! Save your strength and cut the holo show! We'll get you home safe!!" Kagami said and Boy-Miyuki bowed and blurred out and the girls hurriedly rolled the Mantisoid on the raft and pushed and shoved it off and cambered aboard with the oars and sat astride the Mantisoid like on a sleeping horse.

Konata shook her head. "Man, sure hope no one catches sight of us before we reach shore! Three buck-naked chicks saddled an overgrown lobster-bug that's really a guy one passin' for a moe princess! Sheesh! This is getting more confusing than Macross!"

- - -


	2. Chapter 2

_**Miyuki's Spaced-Out Secret**_

_by Dee Eon_

**Chapter Two**

Their arms ached from paddling the raft all afternoon till the low rumble of a rocky shore far below high forested cliffs loomed ahead, and relief couldn't come too soon for Kagami, and not only because of Konata's counter-spirit-lifting corny imitations of a pirate captain shouting orders and bawdy blue jokes apparently of Sōjirō origin. Weren't she too grimly preoccupied with other thoughts to hear or remember, Kagami would've been appalled by Konata's unwitting self-expose of her chevalier attitudes and off-the-wall upbringing.

Despite herself, it was a silent gnashed-teeth gross-out for Kagami to sit bare butt atop a burry sumo-wrestler sized mantis-thing that minded her of "The Fly" sci-fi films squared, what the sickening fluttering mouth parts, its slimy joints, the smell and the huge translucent faceted eyes. It wouldn't been so bad if it were just a elaborate Halloween costume, but this was far iky for any special effects outfit to recreate. Some of Kagami's biggest childhood nightmares came after eying a fly's head under a microscope and a nature film featuring the grisly sex life of praying mantises which she previously thought cute – from afar. She wanted to cringe and scream each moment perched its prickly cactus hide, and the tossing and pitching raft didn't help her tummy any either, though she appreciated Tsukasa's encouraging glances back at her.

'My God, this thing's every bit opposite what Miyuki-san is – was – except in its – er, her soul!' Kagami reflected in squeamish dismay. 'But shame on me! Miyuki's inner beauty and kindness far outshines the – her looks as this – this –' She glimpsed the huge head with hairy faceted eyes and two tiny ones on top and a 'mouth' that looked like a buzz saw of turkey feathers and fleshy mandibles constantly whirling and drooling...

A churning sour swell bubbled up Kagami's throat and she hastily and apologetically slipped off the Mantisoid to quietly puke overboard.

"Onee-chan!!" Tsukasa cried and abashed, Kagami wiped her lips and turned. "I – I know, Tsukasa, and I – I apologize, Yuki –" Her contrite words froze as she saw the real reason for her twin's cry. They were swiftly approaching a shore of jagged rocks where the breakers crashed like thunderous watery explosions, creating boiling swirling pools drawing them on like dozens of huge drains.

A cold bolt of lightning raced down Kagami's spine.

"Omigosh! We can't land there!" Kagami blurted in stark fear. "We'll be dashed to pieces!"

"The current's sweeping us over there!" Konata cried, her oar beating water like a frenzy. "Put your backs into it!! Turn helm port flank! Quick!"

"Helm? What helm, Captain Nemo??" Kagami cried, panic even outdoing Konata's effort.

"Oh no, Onee-chan!! It's got us! Oh God, please save us!!"

"Put those praying hands in the water and stroke, Tsukasa! Stroke like crazy!!" chided Kagami, their futile paddles showing little as the raft was carried toward the roaring rocks, whirling and swirling under foaming whirlpools and a rain of exploding water drenching them. Dropping her useless oar, Tsukasa threw her arms around Kagami tight and Kagami rued that Tsukasa was a thousand percent right this time, But her heart thumped a few extra seconds.

"Konata!!"

Konata was still beating away with her oar, and with superhuman strength Kagami reached across and snatched Konata's waist and literally slammed her together with her twin.

"You idiot!!" Kagami cried at Konata's face over the breakers' thunder, "You damned beautiful idiot!!..."

They seized another weld-tight to finally affirm their bond to God before the terrible dashing blow, but suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere they were wrapped tight in a leathery sac blotting out the light and drenching rain and they instinctively cried out in fear and confusion while wedged together as one, they tumbled several times like peas in a pod inside a washing machine then suddenly were rolling for what seemed minutes before coming to a stop on still solid ground. All they heard were their pounding hearts and rasping breaths before their tight envelope fluttered away and they blinked around a shore of small stones and sand strewn with shattered pieces of the raft a distance from the breakers, and in amazement saw the Mantisoid's bedspread-sized translucent wings feebly flutter like sails then re-furled on its back and it dropped still.

"Awesome!!" Konata gushed. "You wrapped us up tight in your wings and rolled with the punches to let your shell bod take the beating! Good job!!"

Tsukasa clapped her hands in prayer and happiness. "That was so so brave, Yuki-chan!!"

"Yes," a shaken Kagami said with a bow. "Thank you, Yuki-chan, Forever. I'm – so ashamed–"

"Yea. me too!" Konata exclaimed. "For a moment there I thought we were inside your stomach!!"

"Konata –!!" chided Kagami before biting her tongue at her own kindred thought. "I'm sorry for that, Yuki-chan! Fixing Konata's mouth is just so – exasperating!"

"Aw, com'on! Miyuki-san knows what I mean!"

"No, Konata, she's way too proper to even think that way! Of course, knowing how other people feel is even more alien to you than she is!"

"I guess you're right, Kagamin; I'm just a – 'beautiful idiot', right??"

Kagami blinked aback with a hot blush and shied with a huff. "Really, Konata! You twist things around like a sick pretzel!"

"Hey! Look at Yuki-chan!!" Tsukasa admonished them as she kneeled next the inert Mantisoid. "She's not breathing!!"

"No–!!" Kagami cried, pushing her ear against a furry green thorax. "I – I can't hear her heart beating!!"

"Aw man! How can I do any artificial respiration on a - a busy mouth like that??" Konata cried with suspended horror and disgust. "Mine wouldn't even – fit!"

"Maybe – Maybe CPR!"

"But – how??""

"Let's TRY!!" Kagamin screamed and brought her folded hands on Mantisoid's shell-like thorax and pushed her weight on it and the others joined in.

"Yuki-chan, wake up!! Wake-up!!" they cried, pounding the Mantisoid's shell between shoving their futile ears against it. "Harder!! Harder!!" Tsukasa cried.

Stunned, Konata shook her head. "It...saving us was – was too much for her!"

"No, don't say that Konata!!" Kagami shrilly cried, "Beat harder! Harder!!"

They kept up for long minutes, bruising their hands and cracking their fiery throats with shouts and cries, but it was Konata, choking back tears with the familiarity of simulated carnage and death who moved back.

"Don't stop, Konata!!" cried Kagami.

"Kagamin..." Konata barely whispered in her numb daze. "It's...it's no use –"

"No!!" Tsukasa screamed. "There's still hope! There's always hope!!"

"We tried! She's not – not breathing. There's no heartbeat. She's cold. There's – nothing at all!"

"No! Keep trying!!" Tsukasa wailed, almost shoving her ear into the creature's chest. "There's got to be something! Got to!!"

Kagami, against all her passion looked up helplessly met Konata's pale nod and she woodenly turned to bring her arms around her weeping sister.

"Tsukasa..." Kagami gently said with a tired vacantness she never knew before. "Tsukasa...Yuki-chan...our good... kind... gentle Yuki-chan's...she's...gone..."

**- - -**

"You heard that?" Osato said to Uzi. pausing on the top of the nearby cliff of a mountain valley opening to the sea as the hiking couple came out of the woods, his half dozen cameras dangling like a weighty necklace.

"What?" Uzi wearily asked.

"Like a faint echo far away. Thought I heard a sharp cry or something, very far away."

"Probably a sea gull," she grumbled. "We're miles off the beaten path filming nature for peanuts again for shows night watchmen snore over."

"Still, might be a cry for help," Osato whipped out high powered binoculars to scan along the shore spread out far below them and Uzi sighed and plopped on a rock to caress her slender calf, though from the corner of her eye behind her huge aviator glasses, her vexed vanity ached to fruitlessly catch the slightest instinctive glance from him. Granted, Osato was her lanky senior sibling by six years, but even a sister would feel slighted if her brother was totally oblivious of her curvy khaki hiking shorts and well-filled blouse. Complicated by her early hero-worship of a prodigy for a brother, she long quietly blamed his treating her like one for not helping to pump her female self-esteem and femininity as the reason for her awkwardness and shyness around men and not having landed a husband despite scores of callers. Then on the other hand, she knew thousands of other graduate students would kill for the chance to be the protegee of Japan's own pop eccentric naturalist. Being raised in a family compound of highly unorthodox but respected artists long spoiled her thoughts of being a content housewife, and a office or teaching job looked depressingly mundane to her, so she stuck with tail-hanging her brother in hopes of crossing opportunities other than natural sciences to jump off to.

Unfortunately Osato's fascinations also extended far beyond the natural.

"Maybe it's your Yeti's mating call."

"It's not 'my Yeti'! They've been accounts of it being spotted up and down the coast of Japan for centuries."

"Like the little green heart-shaped lights singing "Melancholy Baby' in the sky?"

"They exist! Why else would there be reports of them? Something's been out there."

"We'd do better going on treasure hunts!"

"Treasure's all around us, Uzi. We just have to increase the chance of occupying the same space at the same time..." He blinked then pushed his binoculars almost over the cliff. "Holy Mackerel!!"

"What now?"

"Way down there way up that beach! Something's on the beach surrounded by a bunch of naked girls – or I think they're girls!"

"Huh. Somehow feels better you can't tell!" She quipped, again wondering whether Osato used her as a kind of decoy shield to hide his own awkwardness around women before the public. It was funny how few people asked him about girlfriends much less marriage. It was as-though in some odd warped way having comely sisters or daughters as lab assistants tended to reassure others of your masculinity as the absent-minded dads and dorky brothers in old sci-fi films often portrayed.

"It's probably a beached porpoise or large seal. Can't tell. They're in the way trying to help the thing I guess...ah, they're moving around it..." Osato gasped and his jaw fell. "What the –??"

"What the what?"

"Oh my God!! I – I can't believe it!!"

"What, damn-it??"

"It – It looks like a – a – mantis!"

"Mantis? Those glasses barely picks up a person this far!"

"I mean a giant mantis! It's – gigantic!!"

"Giant mantis, uh? Naw. Probably just a flying one-eyed purple people eater," Uzi sighed before the binoculars were shoved to her face.

"It's green alright! Look down way over there where the beach meets the horizon!"

"Where? Where?"

"Way on the very far end of the beach!"

"You must have Ultraman eyes!!" Uzi uttered, panning the glasses then halting. "Wait. Okay, I see little girls and – uh? What the –??"

"Tell me what that looks like! Tell me!!"

Incredulous, Uzi shook her head. "No, no, it's impossible! It's – It's too far so really see clearly!"

"Com'on! First impression, sis!"

"No! It – It can't be! It must be some – some tree washed ashore from the twister whose branches and all just happens to be in the shape of a – a –"

"A what? Mantis, right?" Osato clucked, excited as a child at a circus. "Just look at that monster!! And a highly mutated one at that, and don't just mean size!"

"No! Can't be! Even if it were true, believe me those girls wouldn't be caught dead ten miles of such a awful thing, but look! They're slumped all over it like girls over a confirmation bench! It's just a washed-up tree!"

"They might be local native girls. You know how reclusive and primitive these valley tribes are – I mean they're obviously naked too, right? They probably think that the thing's some fallen God of theirs or something and they're homaging it!" Giddy, Osato grabbed one of his cameras and attached a super zoom lens. "I got a good hunch with this – and you know my hunches are never wrong! I just knew that there had to be some massive residual genetic effects from those two nuclear attacks somewhere beyond just three-eyed frogs and five-legged snakes! Finally I can take my old radiation poisoning freak generation theory out of the closet now!"

Snap! Snap! Snap!

He smirked. "Naw, naw, way too far! People will think it's just another fuzzy ape man! What I need is meat!!"

"Meat?" she asked as he hastily put his gear away.

"Yea. gotta take a specimen!"

"Ugh. Can't you do it in those bushes over there?"

"I mean a sample, twit!"

"'Sample?? You mean as in examine and dissect sample??" she chided as he started to hustle back the path. "Wait! We gotta trek all the way down to that beach just to check out some misshapen debris??"

"Put it this way, Sis; if it's what I think and we make a documentary of it – with sci-fi film and anime spinoff deals and overseas cable residuals, not to mention product royalties and medical and pharmaceutical derivatives off that carcass, you can have your pick of wheels and pads in the world and slack off in the manner to which you wish to be accustomed for the rest of your life. Or you can stay here and keep hunting for two-headed gulls!"

Uzi scampered after him. "It'll take an hour to reach that beach!"

"Gravity will help our way! Hurry!!"

**- - -**

The girls were slumped over the Mantisoid, their cheeks red and streaked with tears.

"Poor Yuki-chan!!" wailed Tsukasa, stroking the creature's furry shell. "She was so – so good! So gentle! So unselfish!"

"We – we can't leave her like this!" Konata said. "We – We gotta bury her. Then say a prayer."

Tsukasa was distressed. "Bury?? Mean not tell anyone??"

"That Miyuki Takara – prettiest and brainiest girl in Ryoo High – is now just a big bug rotting out on some beach? I don't want anyone remembering her like this!"

"I – I agree," Kagami reluctantly concurred. "I don't want her remembered as a – a freak of nature, even though she's not!"

"But – what do we tell everyone, Onee-chan??"

"We say that – that we lost Yuki-chan in the twister, Tsukasa."

"We – lie?? Yuki-chan never lied! Is that the best way to honor her? Lie??"

"Which is it, Tsukasa –?" Konata posed. "Letting everyone remember the moe way she was or seeing – this in some big bottle at a museum??"

"Besides, who'd believe us if we said the truth?" Kagami cautioned, "They'd think we're on crack, like Konata says."

"Yea. They might even say that we made up a wild story to cover up putting Miyuki-san away out of jealousy or something just like foreigner kids in foreign America do -- and there was a lot of her to be jealous at too!"

"So...where do we – do it?" Kagami asked in a numb quavery voice and Konata looked around.

"In those bushes under the trees. Bound to be some real dirt there to cover it with. Tsukasa?" Konata said the grief-struck twin who vapidly nodded and they gathered on one side of the Mantisoid and pushed.

Konata groaned; "Aw man, it's friggin' heavy!"

"SHE'S friggin' heavy!!" Tsukasa angrily snapped out of character. "And I'm going to follow Yuki-chan's example for the rest of my life! I'm going to take a school book to bed with me every night and read it cover to cover then move on to another and another and another! And I'm going to score hundreds on every test and jump perfect hurtles and going to be a top famous doctor to take Yuki-chan's place in the world – uh??"

Suddenly there was a flicker over the Mantisoid that steadied and solidified, and gape-mouthed and startled, the girls gasped as in each of their heads ghostly bare Boy-Miyuki feebly appeared before the inert Mantisoid.

"Please Tsukasa-san, don't use my name in vain!" the mental projection gently admonished.

Tsukasa exploded with ebullience. "Miyuki! You're back!! Or – or are you really a ghost now?" she timidly asked.

"Well, you three certainly could wake the dead, for sure! Actually, your chatter temporarily jarred me out of a death stupor, so for that I'm deeply grateful," he said, bowing.

"For once our aimless talk actually did something useful!" Kagami said, wiping a tear.

Tsukasa clapped with joy. "Oh, I'm so glad you're alive, Yuki-chan! But of course you'd have to be or all of this would end too early, just like in seven when they left me no time to announce the next episode at all!"

Konata blinked. "Huh??"

Kagami smirked. "Forget it. She's just wonked out again, like when she was fantasizing I was her younger sister."

"How - How do you know about that??" Tsukasa blurted while Kagami's violet eyes rolled.

"Hey, speaking ghosts –" Konata gestured the still creature beyond Boy-Miyuki. "You're dead meat! I know all the signs, even if there's no spurting blood or gaping wounds or anything!"

"For a human, perhaps, Kona-chan, only very much like terrestrial insects, Mantisoids don't have central lungs or hearts."

"I knew it had to be something like that!!" gushed Tsukasa, hugging the beast.

"But I'm too weak to move at all. I barely have energy to mentally-project to you to say don't weep for me. I had a most happy well-adjusted life –"

"Can it, Miyuki!" Konata snapped. "We're gonna stuff some grub down your gut if it kills us!"

"Yes!" Kagami anxiously looked around. "I see lots of plants here. Maybe berries and roots. Maybe a coconut. Would that help??"

"No. Though my human side has learned to crave vegetables – especially with spicy brown curry sprinkled with almond wine – my Mantisoid physiology is strictly carnivorous, I'm afraid."

"What's that mean?" asked Tsukasa.

"Means we gotta find meat for her, Tsukasa."

"Meat? What kind of meat??"

Konata nodded. "Sure! Like maybe a bird, deer, snake, rabbit –"

"Bunnies??"

"Snakes??" Kagami blurted with appall and suddenly concerned with doubt. "But – how are we going to catch anything like that??"

Suddenly Boy-Miyuki started flickering. Alarmed, Tsukasa cried. "Wait! Don't go!!"

"Turn off your mind show!! Save your strength, Miyuki!" Kagami cried with renewed tears.

Konata pounded the beast's chest. "Yea, you friggin' die on me and I'll kick your friggin' moe butt!!"

Boy-Miyuki weakly smiled. "I'm not very moe right now, am I, Kona-chan? I – I trust you. All of you."

"Alright, now shut your mind-meld off 'cause your bare boy buff's grossing Tsukasa out! Guys, we gotta push her into those bushes and cover her!"

"What?? Still going to bury her??" Tsukasa cried to the others' rolling eyes.

"Tsukasa–" Konata explained, "First rule of landing on enemy territory; don't take any chance on anyone finding your wounded out in the open while you're hunting grub so you hide and camouflage them! Especially since she's way too weak to defend herself!"

"Worst, she wouldn't try if they tried to kill her!" Kagami grimly said and the trio strained, their toes digging sand to push and shove and slowly roll the Mantisoid deep into the brush under the tree line and gently covered it with loose leaves and sand. "There! That should do it."

"We'll get back soon as we can, Yuki-chan!!" Tsukasa called back as they came back out on the beach and looked up and down.

"So, any idea where we are?" Kagami asked.

"Uh, well, we're not anywhere near the beach house, I guess," Tsukasa guessed.

"Great observation, Sis. Between that twister and the current bringing us here, we could be dozens of miles away from the hotel. Since it looks pretty wild, it's probably some kind of preserve."

"Hey, this is Japan! You can't walk ten steps without bumping into people!" Konata said, " I bet there's a highway right over those hills!"

"You're right again for once. We're bound to run into some boat or beachcomber along the shore."

"Uh, Onee-chan–??" squeaked a terminally abashed Tsukasa, waving at their nakedness.

"Well, maybe we could walk neck-high in the surf or do what Hawaiians do with grass and palm leaves!"

"But that's for skirts, Onee-chan! What about up top??"

Konata groaned. "Women!"

Kagami snorted. "Last time I checked you were one too!"

"Last time? What were you doing checking me out down there, Kagamin, Hmmm??" Konata coyly taunted and blushing Kagami shied.

"Forget it! Look, let's just stay in the trees along the beach while we look for Yuki-chan's food, okay? That way we won't get spotted and be petrified with immodesty."

(military drum roll) "Ah, exactly what I was thinking – first!" Konata clucked, picking up a long sharp twig like a spear. "Avoiding detection while foraging for grub are basic commando squad survival skills! Using the undergrowth as your shield and shelter is a part of any special forces arsenal, along with stalking and trapping wild game to feast on raw like sushi! Also the situational awareness to avoid being ambushed by the enemy and being poisoned by eating the wrong nuts or roots or sipping from stagnant pools! Fortunately I've been thoroughly weaned on counter-insurgent tactics since I was playing those sims way back on dad's knee!"

Kagami sighed. "Why do I suddenly feel nauseous all over again, Obi-wan??"

**- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - **

**(PLEASE leave any review! Love you for it, thanks!**)


	3. Chapter 3

_**Miyuki's Spaced-Out Secret**_

_**by Dee Eon**_

(pre-doujinshi beta read)

**Chapter Three**

"EEEKKK –!!" Kagami shrieked in the shoreline woods, jumping back from something in the tall grass right before her.

Sighing, Konata trudged back from leading the group with a crude spear made from a tree branch scraped to a point on a rock and casually reached into the grass before the twins.

"Konata! Stop!! Don't–!!" cried Kagami warned in alarm then with a jerk of surprise and chagrin she shied as a smugly grinning Konata waved up a long dark tree root.

"He ain't gonna bite you, Kagamin! He doesn't wanna get poisoned!"

"Very funny! We're just not as reckless about our lives as you are!" Kagami snapped, knowing though she was being just a little harsh that it was important to her to not show the tiny girl just how much she dreaded her foraging ahead and taking brash risks to.

"Kagamin, you know I wouldn't let anything happen to my bride-to-be, ummmm??" Konata said in that coy way matching her almost lewd scan over whose bare buff that made Kagami blush above a chest thump, "I saw it when I first walked by here because I'm looking for snakes and bird nests and chipmunk holes and wild boar and stuff for Miyuki too. Even any jellyfish washed up the beach over there."

Tsukasa went white; "Yuki-chan eats – jellyfish??"

"She's not human right now, Tsukasa, so it's okay," assuaged Kagami before smirking at Konata. "But the way Indiana Jones has been going, she's more likely going to starve!"

"Kagamin, Kagamin! When are you ever going to trust me?"

"I've good reason not to trust you with – not finding Yuki-chan any food!" Kagami blurted, instantly gnashing her lip from a near slip, as always dreading that the tiny girl had a sixth sense and was just playing coy with her secret confusion all along.

"Hunting takes time, city-girl! The wilderness isn't a supermarket!"

"Yuki-chan doesn't have that kind of time! She's fighting her Mantisoid instincts to hunt and eat US! And if she wins over it she'll starve to death!"

"Chill, Kagami! Look, what I can't spear I'll trap!"

Kagami snickered. "Hey city-girl, sure you know how to trap?"

"A hundred survivalist sims! I know how to make wire snares out of vines and bamboo stake pits and flying booby spears from honed twigs and branches."

"I just don't know, Konata!"

"Hey, hey, if there's one thing about me you really like it's my cooking, right? How'd you think I learned to with the little time I've got? From my NDS Steel Chef program, step-by-step!"

Kagami grudgingly nodded and followed Konata's lead again. It was apparent they were in some kind of preserve as they passed old campsites amid pieces of flotsam and jetsam washed high ashore by storms.

"There goes another one!" Tsukasa said, pointing off-shore at a low seaplane skimming the horizon and the girls all ducked low, "That's two planes and three boats we didn't wave at!"

"Well. I didn't stop you!" Kagami wryly retorted, gesturing the other's nakedness. "Besides, if we're 'rescued', Yuri-chan's doomed, remember?"

"Yes. Yes, you're right, Onee-chan. So selfish of me."

"No, Tsukasa, you just forgot a moment. Big difference. Actually I'm very proud how you've handled this."

"You are?? Really??"

"Yes. I probably shouldn't admit this, but I half-way expected you to flake-out into silly putty back on that reef, never mind here. I'm glad I was wrong, and I'm proud you're my sister."

Tsukasa blushed. "I'm proud you're my sis, Sis," she shyly answered then with a curious pause asked; "So – how'd you guess that I dreamed about being the older sister??..."

They marched on, occasionally ducking out of sight of far speedboats and seaplanes though they wished they could've stayed on the beach. The bordering woods was lush and thick with sharp and spiny vegetation scratching and cut the twins' bare thighs as they followed Konata's slog through the bush like waist-high water.

'I have to give her credit, she's actually learned something useful from those sims," Kagami grudgingly admitted. "Too bad she's learned too many other things not so – nice."

"Ekkk–Owww–!!" Tsukasa shrieked.

"What is it Tsukasa??" blurted Kagami at her twin's beet-red face while her hands covered herself low like fig leaves.

"Th - Th - Th - This grass's too thick and high!" she said of the hip deep straw grass. "The tops are all bristly and sharp and scrapes high up 'tween your legs and...and you know?..."

It was Kagami's turn to blush and rue; 'Is she so sensitive there because she hardly or never –??' She sheepishly broke off the troubling lewd thought and busily looked around. "Er, look, Tsukasa, just – follow right behind my footsteps where I've already mashed the grass and plants flat, okay? Soon as we stop I'll see how we could – cover ourselves better, okay?"

"O-kay..." Tsukasa moaned, trailing her sister who in turn followed Konata's own wake of disturbed shrubbery and grass. Kagami peered ahead and shook her head. Konata might've been a 'midget' as Misao jealously likened her, but Konata was wiry and agile, almost like a cat with a loose double-jointness that also helped her sprint faster than way leggier females, though naked from behind, the ultra-petite girl appeared more like a young –

'Yes, she should've been a boy,' Kagami wistfully thought then bit her mental tongue.

No!

Don't go there, Kagami Hiiragi! Not anywhere near there! Not now – or any time!

But – I can't help it!

I nearly died when her cramped foot nearly made her drown and she nearly fell over board while trying to paddle us of the breakers! My only thought was holding her tight before the end. Even – even more than Tsukasa! I was willing to drown saving her. No – more. I wanted to drown with her! That shouldn't be! Shouldn't be! None of these things should be! People tell me I'm pretty and interesting and a boy magnet, yet boys don't even try to face me except to pick up things I dropped. It's as though they sense something – 'different' about me that I'm blind to or just not admitting to myself.

Just like what slips out of Hiyori's lips about us...

No!

I'm not – 'that way'! I'm not!

'Then why do I find myself in bed, moaning songs to God of why we're never in the same class, of why does my heart beat so for this idiot? Yes, she's an idiot! A cocky, selfish, horny harelipped idiot out of my class in more ways than one, and technically I shouldn't even be giving the pest the time of day, just like with Misao and Ayano back in junior high.'

'Yet...I just can't seem to – turn her away. Is it that I'm just – too polite? Or is it because I'm just a fool? And does Konata know I'm an easy fool for her to mess around with in her perverted ways? And she is perverted, there's no doubt about that. She's pretty frank teasing and ogling at me and how she judges other girls. I'd long assumed she's at least latently 'bi' by her warped upbringing by a warped otaku lolicon and long lost her spiritual innocence by being raised on adult games even before she learned to write. It makes her almost pathetic, someone to be pitied not scorned. Is that why I excuse so much of what she does and says? Because it's not entirely her fault? Is that why I'm so soft on her, because she's really a victim who doesn't know she is? That maybe I pity her because her nutty perverted dad might've – or still might be – abusing her the very worst way? But in the process of being a victim, she's turning me into one!...'

Kagami abashedly remembered huddling for warmth through the night spooned between Konata and Tsukasa and through the night felt Konata's flat chest pressed her back, her taunt boyish hips pressed her seat, then the shy gentle strokes along her thigh and hips and instead of bolting in appall she continued feigning sleep and absorbing the tingling forbidden sensations.

No!

That's not why I didn't – didn't do anything! I'm not that way! I'm not! I was – just didn't want to make a scene in front of Tsukasa by scolding Konata for being so – perverted!

Then, I can't deny I dote Full Metal Panic, and at Comiket I REALLY didn't have to open that – that hentai manga when I already saw what was on the cover. But all that didn't start till I met her! Before, I was a normal reasonable person, though some used to call me a little snooty behind my back – which is wrong. I just have higher moral standards and work ethics, that's all. I was a totally virginal miko who used to score a hundred in tests all the time in junior high – like, Miyuki-san couldn't hold a candle to me back then! But that all that took a slide when I met Konata! It's like this – this idiot's somehow hijacked my reason! My senses! My –

Heart...

Kagami wrung her head; 'If only she looked way more like a girl then it'd be so much easier to put her off. At least – I could deal with that either way with my head high...

A touch on her bare silky shoulder made her jump with a shrill, "EEKKK!!"

"Shhh, Onee-chan–!!" Tsukasa said, tapping Kagami's shoulder again. "Don't you see?"

"Uh, er, see what?"

"Kona-chan waved at us then dropped to her knees and is crawling on. Does she want us to do the same?"

"I don't know why...but it looks like some kind of clearing up ahead..."

"Maybe she's found something to spear, like a squirrel or a monkey or a – a – bunny!" Tsukasa rued.

"Tsukasa, Yuki-chan's depending on us," Kagami gently stressed."We can't turn back till we find something to feed her with! Anything!"

"But – suppose we can't find anything?"

"We will. Think positive now!

The twins crept low in the grass and as they approached crouching Konata saw that the tree line abruptly stopped before what was once a small bay but which was now closed off by a long levee and was covered with the barred tops of hundreds of pens serviced by a grid of floating wooden walkways, and kneeling on them were several dozen young women in drab shawls and broad straw hats, busily sprinkling buckets of a grainy powder over each penned area whose surfaces boiled with little waves. The only access to the bay outside the ocean was an interior valley where a road and several small buildings were gathered.

"What going on?" Kagami asked and Konata shrugged.

"Search me! Sure no rice patty, that's for sure!"

Suddenly a perked Tsukasa's hand few up. "Wait! Wait! I know! This was on the nature show last year! It's a shrimp farm!"

"Shrimp farm??" Konata and Kagami chorused then looked on with rapt interest.

"Yea! They're feeding them ground up fish and seaweed and things, and those bars on top the pens keep all the sea birds out!"

GRRRUUURRRRRRRRUHHHHH!!

The twins gasped with alarm and wildly glanced around for some huge wild animal before they vexedly eased up by seeing Konata rubbing her navel; "Man! I'm so hungry I feel like having sushi on the spot!"

"There's a more important gut for us to stuff first!" chided Kagami

"Maybe we should go up and ask for some food," Tsukasa said.

Konata snickered. "Right. Three buck naked girls out of nowhere asking for take-out!"

"Uh, we could say we're from a nudist beach?"

"Right. We're also underaged and look like we've gone through hell. Chances they'll call the authorities to pick us up and where will Yuki-chan be then?"

"Only one option!" Konata said (start military drum roll background), eying over the area and stopping at nearby hut and snapped her fingers. "Yea! Commando infiltration tactics!"

Kagami sighed. "In a bizarre way, I think you'd actually be good at this kind of thing! But don't you think they'd have a guard on the lookout or something? Shrimp are expensive!"

"Hey, this isn't America, Kagamin! We don't pile guards on top of guards or own tommy guns and nerve gas and barbed wire to keep our stuff safe!"

"Just how do you know it's like that over there?"

"Really, Kagamin! I've a personal special on-the-spot native American source: Patty!"

"Huh! Patty's as accurate as a wind-vane in a typhoon!"

Konata rose. "You ladies wait here. This is a man's job!"

"Then why are you doing it?"

"I'm the closest to one in this squad! 'Sides, someone's gotta do it!"

"That really boosts my sense of femininity, Konata. Thanks!" sniffed Kagami, but her chest was still thumping as Konata's tiny figure scrambled along the edge of the woods parallel the little bay, cautiously watching the attention of the shrimp farmers on their work until she sneaked towards the woods just beyond the hut when she disappeared from the twin's view.

"Where'd she go?" Tsukasa asked. "I hope she didn't get caught."

"I have a funny feeling we're already caught," Kagami said, her fists anxiously balled tight for two minutes before her breath vented at the sight of Konata scrambling into the woods from behind the hut, a large beige bundle in her arms.

"Onee-chan, what's she carrying??"

"Suddenly I don't want to know!" Kagami said with trepidation for another two minutes before Konata appeared behind them with several large wicker baskets nested inside another and containing a cloth bundle.

"Mission accomplished! Check it out!" she chimed, throwing out the unraveling bundle and revealing several calico shawls identical to the shrimp farmers, along with some simple sandals.

Tsukasa happily squealed. "Clothes!!" and wasted no time throwing on the simple coarse garment. "Ahhh! I never knew wearing anything could feel so great!"

"Not just!" Kagami quipped, shaking her head at Konata's smug grin as she separated and handed out the baskets. "You gotta be kiddin'!"

"Just play it cool and walk like a ninja like you belong there and scoop as many shrimp as you can!"

"But it looks like they're all feeding the shrimp, not harvesting them! We'll never get away with it!"

"Sure we will! Inside the shed I also saw a check cashing depot poster on the wall, which means these are day laborers who likely don't know another for soy beans!"

"That's a lot of assuming. Where'd you get that idea from?"

"From the 'Stella Serendipity Homicide Case' sim I got last month. The awesomely brilliant ultra-petite harelipped detective in it kinda reminds me of me to a 'T'!"

"Is that supposed to be encouraging?"

Donning crinkly shawls and broad straw hats, they quietly advanced to the nearest pier and pens and to Kagami's relief they only attracted brief cursory glances that dutifully returned to work. Lifting a barred pen cover like a hatch, Konata knelt and dipped her stirring hand into the pen. "Man, colossal shrimp! What do they feed these mommies??"

"Quit tickling the shrimp and get on with it, will you??" scolded Kagami, abashedly dropping her head and voice low. "If we get caught I'm not sharing your cell! Tsakasa, bring your basket here!"

"Er, Tsukasa, you better do it alone if you wanna catch anything!" Konata said and Kagami snorted.

"These aren't goldfish, you clown! Tsukasa – get over here!"

- - - -

'Osato is truly insane, almost tumbling us down these slopes!' Uzi thought aloud, slipping and sliding down another steep sandy slope from the hillside behind the shoreline cliff.

They landed on the beach and ran far up the shore to where the others landed.

"Where is it?"

"Look – it's been dragged!" Osato pointed out, following the disturbed sand trail into the brush under the shoreline trees, then carefully making his way then spotting a poor covered green hump under leaves, brush and sand.

"Omigod!" he whispered aloud, gingerly taking a branch and brushing the debris off the thing. "Fantastic!"

"Sure it's not just a – a seal?" asked Uzi before Osato exposed the green segmented abdomen – twice as broad as a man's – and the furled four legs and the pray-tucked forearms and claws.

"Jeeze! Look at that, will you??"

"Omigosh, Osato! You were right!"

"Never doubt Big Brother, right? Ah! What a magnificent speciment!"

"I know it smell it, but is it – really dead?"

"Kiddin'? After getting poked and kicked and rolled around by a bunch of kids?" Osato said, giving the Mantisoid's shell a few hard whacks with a stick.

"But – But where'd it come from?"

"It obviously washed ashore, so it could've been from most anywhere. Thawed out from some iceberg formed millions of years ago or from some undersea cavern environment ripped open by a seaquake. Even some godforsaken uncharted island time forgot! Take your pick! One thing's for sure, it's no normal mantis."

"No kiddin' bro'!"

"No, I meant it's not simply an overgrown monster. For instance, four legs instead of six and forearms with apparently manipulative claws – look at these retractable appendages along the claw's inside. They might function to grab and manipulate things like fingers. This is a mutation and a half! Look at that skull size! Ah, it must've been one magnificent bastard when it was alive!"

"Those big hairy eyes are spooky! What's those three big pearl things on top of it's head?"

"Ancillary eyes, just like a real mantis! Mostly for discerning shapes than images, but low vision just the same! Like 10/200 for us!" he explained, swatting them with his twig.

"EEEEKKK–!!" Uzi shrieked, jumping aback.

"What's wrong??"

"Osato! Get away from it! That – That - That antenna thing! It – It twitched!"

"Naw, just an involuntary motor reflex, like a dissected frog kicking its legs. This thing's designed to be a killer and if it had a last breath it'd been spent it grabbing us! No, this goose's cooked, sis – but it's just as valuable as an evolutionary freak, a radiation mutation, a chemically altered life-form, a global-warming victim or whatever unknown process Carl Sagan hasn't guessed."

"Well, it sure stinks bad as it looks! EEKKK!! Look – they twitched again!"

Osato chuckled and tweaked the thin furry antennae. "Yea, feisty little feller, wasn't he? My god, Uzi! Do you know what this means? This caps my career! I'll be the Big Kohuna authority of the para-natural world! On wall-to-wall lecture tours! On T.V. shows! Hell, I'll get my own show! I'll be bigger than Marlin Perkins! Than David Attenborough! Than Steve Irwin –!"

"No, NOT like HIM!"

"Don't worry, sis!" he chuckled, rapping the Mantisoid's rear stinger with the stick. "This wicked baby's out of commission for good. Too bad. If only I could've caught it live! I'd be chairman of every TU campus! O well, the Gods were kind enough to deliver me a life promotion so why look a gift horse in the mouth."

"Uh, don't those girls get any claim or fame, Mr. Humility?" asked Uzi and Ostao snorted.

"Some primitive naked tribal girls? They'd be just as happing paying homage to Mothra!"

"Yea, well I hate to rain on your parade, but aren't ritual rites and artifacts of native tribes protected by sanctions on a state preserve? They could claim this thing's a bug God and they'd be covered."

"Maybe – but what these primitives don't miss won't cheat them. I'll just call for a pick-up truck to haul it out of here before those native nymphettes return and squeal to their folks."

"A truck? Even a Land Rover couldn't get down here!"

"Hmm. You're right. A helicopter or a boat's the ticket."

"But that is going to be a big job! The curator's going to demand proof this time, especially after that giant mouse-bat-spider expedition of yours in Peru!"

"Hey, no problem! I'll use my camera phone! What all the press my work's brought TU and the museum, why wouldn't they come running at a find like this??"

"I'm afraid tiny pictures any kindergartner could've Photoshopped's not good enough to hang their reputations on yet, Osato."

Ostato whipped out a knife. "A little biopsy should placate any doubts! We can move and bury it someplace else where no one can find it till we return."

"Move?? Like – touch it??"

"Unless you know some Amazing Kreskin tricks! Now let's see, should I be a surgeon or a dentist?"

A flurry of flickering light suddenly appeared over the Mantisoid.

Uzi's jaw dropped. "Wh – what's that??" she blurted as the light formed into a blurry ball that extended into Boy-Miyuki, brandishing a finger at them.

"Begone heathens!!" the boy boomed in a opera blasting voice. "You are desecrating the local native maidens offering to Yuki-Tiki-Miki! Depart my space!!"

Osata gaped in astonishment. "I – I can't believe it! A – A spirit manifestation!!"

"If you do not exit this beach forthwith and immediately, a great calamity and curse will befall you and your children and children's children sure as taxes!"

Uzi sprung to her feet; "Hey – hey – wait! Needn't be THAT vindictive! We were just – just trespassing!"

"Linger any further and you shall lose your lives! Your souls! Your jobs! Banish yourselves! Pronto!!"

"Shit! Let's go, Osato!!"

"Wait! Wait!!" he said, fumbling with his rapidly shooting camera. "It's not showing in my lens!!"

"It's a ghost, dummy!! Let's go!!"

"You will each fry and fricassee in the depths of Hades for eternity with no rest or end – especially for swatting my eyes!!"

"Osato!!"

"Begone Barbarians! Foreigners! Yankee go home!!"

"Osato –!!"

"Not yet! I've got to study this! Communicate with it!"

"Stay here and we'll be communicating with you by a medium! Let's go!!" she cried, grabbing his arm and towing him off with frantic strength.

"Thank you very much for vacating the premises, trespassers-san, and please have a nice day!"

A quarter way up the hill Uzi slowed just enough for Osata to hand on his feet. "Uzi! What's wrong with you? You're not acting like a true scientist!"

"No, just acting on behalf of my everlasting soul! Didn't it sink in what's happened?"

"You're just superstitious of some – unconfirmed apparition!"

"I'm not superstitious! I just don't wanna get zinged by some flaky ghoulie who hates my face, that's all! My life's been cursed enough!"

- - - - -

The trio quietly raided the pens closest to shore, each scoop of the baskets dredging pounds of wiggling shrimp to pour into a holding basket, though skittish Tsukasa kept losing her catch.

"Tsukasa – dip your basket deeper so you catch more before they could swim out!"

"I know, Onee-chan, but they're so - so icky alive like this!"

"Man, thought you'd be over that after Yuri-chan!" Konata quipped. "Gee, look-it these suckers! You know what the delivery place charges for colossal shrimp like these??"

"I'm surprised all this isn't more guarded," Kagami wondered.

"Don't need any guards. First off there's only one road up front out of here and you can't deliver these babies to market fresh without a fast ice truck, and those bussed-in workers sure aren't gonna walk all the way home with shrimp stuffed under their clothes. You'll just end-up tired out with smelly clothes and a hot bath!"

"Still, Kona-chan, it's not right to steal. Even shrimp."

"We're – not stealing, Tsukasa," Kagami pressed. "We're – getting now and paying back later. I promise."

"'Yea! Your dad's gonna need extra collection trays at the temple!" Konata quipped then eyed their full baskets. "What a haul! I figure it's enough to get Yuri-chan going till we find bigger game."

"So how do we haul these out into the woods instead of their harvest bins without getting spotted?" Kagami asked and Konata snapped her fingers. (military drum roll).

"Just leave it to me!"

"Leave what??"

"Engaging diversionary tactics to conceal orderly retrieval and retreat!"

"Re what?? Konata–!!" Kagami gasped, startled as the diminutive girl jumped up and almost jauntily sauntered toward the far end of their pier in mid-bay.

"What's she doing, Onee-chan??"

"Begging to get caught!" Kagami said with white-knuckled apprehension while Konata reached the far point of the piers then grabbed a broom which she began flailing like a microphone as she started shouting – or rather singing out loud with a vivacious strutting dance;

"Pleiades is in the Wind! The Milky Way is in the sand! Where has everyone gone?? I never said good-bye!! Pegasus is in the prai – rie! Venus is on the street corner!!..."

"Crazy! What's she doing? Karaoke??" Kagami wondered in bewilderment before she realized that all the hats in the farm were turned to Konata. "Of course! I get it!!"

"What, Onee-chan??"

"Not what – Grab!!" Kagami said, hastily dragging their piled baskets into the concealing woods where they caught their breaths.

"But how about Kona-chan??" asked Tsukasa too soon because Konata ended her piece and after taking a bow she sauntered back down the dock amid a thunder of applause that quickly dropped into silence back to work. Instead of heading toward the twins in the woods, the mini-otaku sauntered lively toward the inland cluster of processing and utility buildings.

"Onee-chan! Where's she going??"

"Throwing them off – and hopefully the boss too!" Kagami said, wringing hands as Konata disappeared. "I think this is when we really find out how fast she is!"

After two anxious minutes the twins heard an approaching rustle of dashed leaves and branches and Konata appeared, panting but smugly grinning with a thumbs-up.

Tsukasa clapped. "Bravo, Kano-chan! That was awesome!"

Kagami shook her head in grudging admiration. "Your cockiness never fails to amaze me, Konata."

"That's why life with me will never be dull, Kagamin! You should think of that!"

"Well, get a sex change operation and I'll think about it. You took quite a risk, Konata! What had they stopped and questioned you?"

"Naw, it's like in the train; nobody stops anyone who starts acting crazy there, do they?"

"You have a point. But how do you know someone won't follow you here?"

"Nope!" Konata said, lifting a basket and giving a thumbs up sign. "Today's pay day!"

Kagami smirked and heaved her basket and followed Konata toward the beach when suddenly something on a far hillside beyond the bay overlooking the ocean caught her eye.

"What is it, Onee-chan?" asked Tsukasa and her twin pointed.

"Do you see that? Up that hill facing the sea! Look close!"

Tsukasa strained her eyes at a tiny white structure with a peaked herringbone roof. "Yes! I just barely see it, Onee-chan. It looks like a palace, like Kyoto!"

"Or a temple! With a shrine nearby! They often have, right?"

Konata mulled. "Hope you're right. That's a long way out of our way coming back this way!"

"We didn't have any way to go before!" Kagami retorted.

"Onee-chan, remember that old map on the wall in dad's shrine office, showing all the Shinto shrines in Japan? Some were in religious retreats along the sea."

"You're right, Tsukasa! If I recall, some are pretty reclusive sects and don't admit outsiders."

Konata grunted. "Huh. Don't have to worry 'bout that out here!"

"I don't think Tsukasa and I will have any problem since we're miko and they'd likely exchange courtesies with us – unlike infidels like you. We might even get a chance to call home."

"And maybe a ride back to the beach hotel for our things too, Onee-chan!"

"Yea –" Konata dubiously added "–if they haven't hocked our stuff already!"

- - - - -

"Wait –!!" Osata rapped napping Uzi's thigh on their hillside redoubt before readjusting his binoculars.

"Wh – Wha–?"

"Those girls are back – wearing shawls this time and carrying baskets! Maybe it's an offering to the thing!"

"They can have the smelly thing! I prize my immortal soul more!"

"Naw, you believe in Santa Claus."

"Then what was that guardian angel thing, huh??"

"I dunno. Granted it was some incorporeal manifestation of some kind, but I've been racking my brains about what's the kami of insects and freaky creatures, and closest I come to is a roach god in India."

"So?"

"What I'm saying is that there's as many insect sects in Japan as there are giant mantises, and if that's so then these local tribes can't claim that carcass as a religious artifact! Also, a gross mutation created by past nuclear blasts shouldn't have any 'spirit' hovering over it since it's unnatural, right? More important, since it's not a natural denizen of these provinces and nature, anyone has free rights at claiming that thing!"

"Are you sure? 'Primitives' all over have an uncanny talent for grabbing the best lawyers! Your job would be safer moving a shrine into a landfill than flaunting all those wildlife and native people habitat preservation sanctions."

"Blast it! The only good thing is that seems that only these kids found it before their tribe has, so we've got to find a way to lure them away without causing them to alert their folks before we can drag that thing clean out of here!"

"Maybe with some chocolate?" quipped Uzi while Osato smirked back and whipped out his satellite phone. "Listen bro', that's a nice plan but I'm not going near that creeper crawler unless you grab an exorcist or the X-Files, got it??"

"Or...how about a pharmacist!"

"What?"

"It's just possible that we were scared off by a narcotically induced mental projection."

"A what?"

"Records worldwide document primitive peoples having access to unknown bizarre herbs and nuts and roots which influence the brain in odd ways. Induces precognition, telepathy, remote viewing. Maybe even a mental projection to ward off enemies."

"Saying those kids been smoking one to scare us off? Sounds a stretch!"

"Take a look! Doesn't seem like Casper's bugging them any, does it?" Osato quipped, getting on the phone; "Hello, Yuji? Osato! Hi! Listen, I need some grad student assist here and it could mean some serious yen if it pans out. Better than horse betting – heck, you could buy your own track! No, on the level. We've a find here that makes Coelacanth look a tuna! You in? That's a trouper! Got my GPS? Good. Now check out any local tribes in the area, especially religious and superstitious significance. Yes I know, the records are probably buried in old books that haven't seen a scanner, but check it out anyway just in case. Oh, we'll need a 'copter supply drop. Yea, put it my tab. Heck, consider it a blank check! Food, toiletries–"

"And a couple of blessed good luck charms in case Mr. Wizard's bright ideas frizzles out!" Uzi barked.

- - - - -

The tired trio finally dragged their load beside the Mantisoid under the bushes. "Hope you like shrimp without your fave fancy pepper oyster sauce!" quipped Konata, dropping next the beast with the others.

"Look!" Tsukas cried. "Her – her mouth things! Nothing's fluttering or moving or anything!"

In heart-clutching dismay Kagami gasped; "Is she – Is she-??"

In their minds a weak light fluttered then faded.

"No!" Kagami sighed in breathless relief. "She's showing she's still alive!"

"Quick!!" Konata grabbed a handful of shrimp and thrust it before the beast. "Here! Before you pass out!!"

The Mantisoid feebly wavered then dropped still.

"She passed out," Tsukasa squeaked.

"It's – she's too weak to feed herself!"

"So what do we do??" cried Tsukasa.

"Feed her!" Kagami shouted.

"Thought that's what we're doing!" Konata snapped.

"I mean FEED her!" Kagami stressed and Konata quizzically frowned before the gross implication floored her and she looked at the beast's busy mouth in dismay..

"You mean –??"

"Yes! 'Jam it down her gut', remember?"

"But I – I just meant – er - er, er-"

"Figuratively??" Tsukasa answered to Konata's smirk.

"But I – I…"

Kagami shoved Konata aside and with the grimacing tolerance of a steeled gut and blind desperation she plunged her hand into a basket for a handful of fish and – haltingly, shoved it deep into the multi-segmented mouth parts

'Omigod!' Tsukasa cried, signing a cross over her chest, "Onee-chan's making a nightmare!'

Even Konata was stunned before sheepishly recovering enough to numbly follow Kagami's lead by shoving handfuls of shrimp into a maw that felt as well as looked like the epitome of grossness it was. Deep in the basement of her flipped-out mind, Konata likened it to simultaneously; 1.) rummaging your hand deep inside someone having liver surgery, 2.) into a tank brimmed with very live lobsters, 3.) into a barrel of mixed live insects, and 4.) put it this way; look at the extreme close-up of a fly's head and imagine shoving your hand up its 'mouth', 'nuff said.

In short order they scraped the bottom of the baskets and fell back just as exhausted by revulsion as of effort, their hands scratched and slick with crushed shrimp guts and saliva slime like you don't wanna know.

"Are you alright, Onee-chan??" Tsukasa solicitously asked and her twin grimly nodded in a daze and faced the creature's head.

"Chew, Yuki-chan, chew – or whatever you do. Please!" she pleaded with the others' silent chorus, to be answered abruptly by a flurry of whirling turkey-feather mouth parts and inner snapping mandibles that suddenly belched out a lumpy gray mass of goo.

Boy-Miyuki flickered into their heads and bowed. "Please, I profoundly apologize for my spasmodic regurgitation."

"Hell with that!!" Kagami cried between tears. "You're better – right?"

"Markedly so. My gastrointestinal tract was expending the excess keratin carapaces of the crustaceans' exoskeletons."

Konata nodded. "Er, good! For a moment I thought you were allergic to shellfish or something!"

"Was it enough, Yuki-chan?" asked Tsukasa.

"It will sustain me for a few hours. Mantisoid metabolisms are extremely efficient and quick..." Pausing, Boy-Miyuki sounded choked for words and deeply bowed. "Truthfully, I never thought that I would make it this far. I – I cannot convey to all of you the depths of warm feeling and humility in me, knowing what you had to struggle with, inside and outside yourselves to help me."

"Aw, we'd done it for any Mantisoid!" Konata quipped. "I mean, you're good – people!"

Murmuring very softly, escaping his own notice that he was thinking aloud, Boy-Miyuki sighed; "I wish that was entirely true, Kano-chan..." Then he shied as though hastily changing the subject. "Er, you should know that a short while ago I had visitors."

"Visitors??" the trio chorused.

"Yes, a late-twenties man and a young woman, co-ed type, and they sounded very excited finding me."

"Huh! That's a change. You'd thought they'd run like hell!"

"Konata!!"

"Actually, Kona-chan has a point and it is indeed puzzling. The man sounded more intrigued than merely curious about me and in fact tried to knife a sample out of me for some kind of proof."

"Cut you??" Tsukasa gasped in horror.

"Worst, they slapped my eyes and they – they tried to pull my teeth out! It was awful!"

"Oh you poor thing!"

"Fortunately I just had enough psycho-kinetic strength to project myself as an evil spirit and frightened them off."

Konata said, "Well, knowing how well you act evil and bad, they're not gonna be scared for long!"

Kagami nodded. "Yes. Anyone stumbling across you like that must know that they've made a great find. I think we should leave here soon as possible. Are you up to it?"

"Yes, my natural body metabolizes proteins with great efficiency and rapidity, but my basic situation still remains the same; If I'm not soon exposed to Zelta crystal radiations..."

"Crystals!" Tsukasa perked. "Yuri-chan! We found a shrine!"

"We THINK there's a shrine there, Tsukasa!" Kagami admonished. "It's a way away, half-way up a high hill, Yuri-chan. Think you can make it?"

"I have to make it, Kagami-san. There's no option. Either I reach it or I'll have to...to..."

"Hey, don't think that crap!" Konata snapped. "We went through that on the reef, and I'm not just gonna stand and watch you falling on your sword just to protect us from your gut."

"That's very valiant, Kona-chan, but if I don't re-morph as human soon, I'll not only become a hazard to you but now to many many others here on the mainland."

"But we're bound to find you a lot more grub and game besides shrimp here! Why would your dark side still go postal on us?"

"Understand, Kona-chan, it's not just my Mantisoid subconscious emerging over time in my natural state, but also my human memories fade to nothing."

"Fade??" Tsukasa blurted in dismay. "Oh no!"

"But why??" gushed Kagami.

"The brain is the seat of the mind and its soul and so must fit like hand in glove, but a human mind isn't compatible a Mantisoid brain. Even now, it's really my Miyuki memories I'm interfacing you with rather than you communicating with the actual mind you knew when I was human."

"You mean it's just your memories as Miyuki that's keeping you from being totally Mantisoid upstairs right now? But I thought you thought and felt the same way you did when you're human."

"Not exactly the same, Kagami-san. Not right now. See, when I'm Mantisoid my mind interprets my Miyuki memories in much the same way a bi-lingual Japanese can talk and 'think' in English. I can understand about everything human but I'm not."

"So you'll turn into a savage beast real self if your dark side takes over, huh?" Konata said and Boy-Miyuki winced as though greatly slighted but too polite to protest.

"Mantisoids aren't 'savage beasts', Kona-san. Without my being modest saying so, we're far more advanced than humans intellectually and physiologically. The danger I pose to you is that because I was raised human since I hatched, I've had no previous experience and education as a Mantisoid citizen because then I'd the basic awares and knowledge to treat you as intelligent though inferior creatures, not potential prey."

"Prey??"" squeaked Tsukasa and Kagami snickered;

"Uh! You're wising up, Tsukasa! For a moment there I thought you were going to clasp your hands together! But I get it, Yuki-chan. You'd be just like a human being raised without any education or civilization at all, like those reports of lost wild people growing up in jungles, right? Just instincts, no reason."

"So just how different does your real self think from us anyway?"

"Very different, Kona-san. There's an entire species perspective shift and my body also senses things and sees the world very different than you do. It's quite startling from my human experience standpoint, though it's becoming more familiar and natural to me every hour now."

"Well, how would hard would it be for me to understand the way Mantisoids think and feel, Yuri-chan?"

"You can't, Kagami-san. It would be like a chimpanzee trying to comprehend ballet."

"Good thing you're just a cheerleader then!" Konata quipped, shrugging off Kagami's frown.

"The worst part, Kona-chan, is that beyond my human memories being overridden by my native instincts, I'm also starting to forget I'm Miyuki as time passes."

"Shoot! Isn't there anyway to stop or slow that down? Like more shrimp??"

"Unfortunately no, Kona-san." Boy-Miyuki soberly began, (background of banter piano jingle). "See, my Miyuki memories are basically a dynamic emulation in my Mantisoid cerebrum's secondary mnemonic tri-lobe cluster simply because you need exact human brain mnemonic neural structures and endocrine effects to generate human memory patterns. It's very much like creating a virtual machine inside a different physical machine that's otherwise totally incompatible in running whose programs by creating a pseudo-framework that emulates the operating system of a foreign machine which can then run programs otherwise impossible to in the primary machine. So a human mind can only exist in my Mantisoid brain in a perishable virtual state."

"Somehow you're a lot more moe talking like that when you're a chick!" Konata quipped. "But I get it. Kagami, what she means is –"

"I know what she meant! I own a non-polluted computer myself, you know! So Miyuki, how long can your human memories last while you're Mantisoid?"

"It depends on our nutritional and energy state. Normally virtual minds can last a day or so without appreciable degradation, but hunger and exertion can greatly exacerbate that to maybe a few hours. Once I'm fully nourished and my native psyche's fully engaged, I'll be a peril to Japan itself."

"Like Godzilla's not enough?" Konata quipped. "So just how bad can you guys get then?"

"You've seen those horrid 'Alien' films, haven't you?"

"Kiddin'? What A-hole hasn't? Oh – er, sorry. Uh, you mean you're just as bad as those suckers??"

"Kona-chan, we could have five of them for breakfast."

"Whoa!!"

"Breakfast??" Tsukasa squeaked in horror and Boy-Miyuki sheepishly bowed.

"I humbly apologize, Tsukasa-san. I impulsively exaggerated. I meant dinner."

"Dinner??"

"Sounds like we'd better haul your green ass up that hill pretty darn quick!"

"But if she exerts herself she'll only strain her memory faster!" Kagami reminded then sighed. "There's no choice. We gotta get started now, this time up this slope to the ridge I think. Chances are there's a coast highway back there that runs by that palace or temple or whatever it is. Only we can't risk walking on it I'm afraid, so we'll have to walk in the forest which'll only slow us down more."

"Too bad we can't drop by that shrimp farm to give you another pick-me up, green guy!"

"I'm sure I can find game along the way, Kona-chan."

"Cool! I gotta check that out!"

"Konata, you're so warped!"

"Onee-chan, even if there is a shrine, what if there's no –"

"Don't think like that, Tsukasa! Just don't!"

They paused, gasping with awe and relief as the Mantisoid rose on its four legs and shook itself of sand and leaves.

"Awesome!" Konata said. "Man, karate boxers would kill if they could recover from a K-O that fast!!"

"The early savagery of my home world evolved us to heal quick and survive at all costs," Boy-Miyuki said, suddenly appearing a little more mature and muscled and something else that made the girls gasp double.

"Wow!" Tsukasa blurted, fascinated. "Wha – What's happened to you??"

"I have the strength to more forcefully project my mind's human self-image."

"Check force! Man, you're not – bad, dude!" ogling Konata clucked and suddenly Boy-Miyuki flickered out. "Hey, what happened?? You weak again?"

"I don't think so, Konata," Kagami shyly chided, not a little blushed while gauging the looks of her companions with her own surprised perked feelings. "I've a feeling Miyuki doesn't want our relationship warped anymore than it is!"

- - - - -

From his overlook in the hills, Osato's jaw dropped almost quickly as his binoculars. "Holy crap!" he cried, waking Uzi.

"Wh – Wha –??"

"It's – It's – It's alive!!"

"You sound just like – uh? Alive??"

"Yes!! It's – getting up! Gad! It must be seven feet tall! Fantastic! No, it only just resembles a mantis! Look at that skull! That flexing carapace! Those actuating manibles! This is an entirely different species altogether – beyond merely a mutation!"

"Let me see!!" she said, grabbing his glasses. "Bejeeus! Unreal! George Lucas has nothing on this!! It's acting like it's – it's talking with those girls – and now it's walking off with them into the woods!"

"Lemme see!!" Osato said, taking back his glasses. "Incredible! They're not the least anxious or intimidated! There must be some kind of deep symbiosis going on!"

"Maybe it's somehow hypnotized them and is taking them inside for dessert? Don't some insects do something like that on flies or things?"

"Hmmm. You might have a point there which also would explain their obediently bringing it food and force-feeding it without puking a storm...and maybe something else too."

"What?"

"I'm not sure – if that thing has such mesmerizing or psychic powers, then might even use them to decoy and deceive others! Like 'spirit' projections! Fantastic!"

"Fantastic? You got me running even more scared now! You're saying that it's more than just a mindless overgrown insect. Almost like it's some kind of – of intelligent alien, aren't you?"

"Think about it like I have while you've been snoring off a million-yen find! There's zit fossil record of such a thing, that's for sure. Or any sightings resembling it – not even from the Yeti-Nessie front! And I seriously doubt it's some secret tribal pet, so that pretty much wraps up it being indigenous to earth, right?"

"Shit! Now I'm really scared piss, Osato! If it's really some alien, what the hell's it doing down here turning little girls into slaves? You don''t think they're into loli too, do you?"

Osato snapped his fingers. "That's it!!"

"What's 'it'??" Uzi said as her brother scrambled for the phone. "What's it??"

"A way to get around all these damn wildlife and native peoples habitat preservation sanctions and lawsuits and get a claim on that thing! Grab your stuff and keep their trail in sight! Let's see, gonna have to call in some triple-powered tasers and stun-guns to bring this big boy down too!"

"Gonna to rescue those girls?"

"Mmmm...say, that's a good second excuse – and great human interest P.R. angle too! Good thinking, sis!"

"You're all heart, Sir Galahad! You ought be calling in the Marines!"

"Kiddin'? You saw what good they did in 'Aliens'! Besides, calling in others on the catch of the millennium like this? The University will be claiming a piece of this action down to the janitor! We're talking history books here, babe – and nobody's sharing my page! Like who remembers the third man on the moon, right?"

"Or kid sister?"

"Don't smirk, hon! That thing's not green by accident! Forget its mega-million value alone just as a mutant carcass; do you realize how much the worlds' powers would cough up to get their paws on a real live alien? Bill Gates just became our chauffeur, kiddo!"

Uzi thought for a moment then did like a jack rabbit back down towards the beach.

"Oh –hello, Yuri??" Ostao said into the phone as he donned his beat-up Fedora. "No, drop that! The stakes just went through the roof. Correction – the whole damn sky! Yea, sure bet! The surest! Listen, I need you to grab one of your pony racing buddies at the Defense Minister's on the q.t. to grant me an emergency free-license wavier on a national preserve to pursue a clear and live danger to state security!!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

**(Please**** leave ANY**** review!)**


	4. Chapter 4

_**Miyuki's Spaced-Out Secret**_

_by Dee Eon_

(Doujinshi Manga Beta)

**Chapter Four**

GRRRRRRUUUAAAAHHH!!

"EEEKKKK!!"

Hearts and feet a-leaping in the dark forested hillside they were tiredly climbing, the twins shrieked in alarm and whirled for a beast pounding out of the ruddy dusk at them, but their blanched faces of terror turned to smirking sighs as they saw Konata sheepishly rubbing her shawled tummy.

"Konata!!" Kagami hotly barked, fists trembling. "Geeze!! Can't you muzzle that gut??"

"What can I do 'bout it? It hadn't nothing for two days! Not even shrimp sushi – which I don't even wanna see anymore!"

"Then nibble on a pine cone or something! If I hear it once more I'll stuff a fir tree down your throat!!"

"Oh onee-chan–!" Tsukasa wearily complained. "I'm so tired and it's getting dark and there's so many rocks and places where real things can jump out at us! Like – like lions or tigers or bears!"

"Oh my, Tsukasa, your head's still up that twister! The only place you'll find those animals in Japan are zoos!"

"Suppose they escaped??"

"Hey, bring 'em on!" Konata chuckled, patting the Mantisoid strolling besides her. "Yuki-chan can do a snack or two!"

Tsukasa squeaked; "Snack??"

"Yea, we got the ultimate bodyguard! Bullet-proof skin, super-senses, iron jaws – whatever, the perfect Terminator!"

"You mean Guile, don't you?" Kagami said. "Well, didn't he look just like that Terminator guy?"

"Uh, there's a copyright issue 'bout that, babe," Konata whispered aside and Kagami shrugged and with fascination faced the Mantisoid.

"But it's funny, Yuki-chan. I forgot that you're different now and could've protected us. It's like your norm – er, human self is still with us. Maybe that's a good thing everyone can learn, that it's what's deep inside that counts, not the outside, right?"

"Speak for yourself, Kagamin! I miss moe like crazy!" Konata quipped just as Tsukasa wearily plopped on a fallen long. "Gee Tsukasa, if Kagamin had a yen every time you took a breather we'd be married by now!"

"Your warped jokes doesn't make the way feel shorter, Konata! Tsukasa, I'd expect Yu-chan to pucker out in a heartbeat, but you're really out of shape!"

Tsukasa weakly smiled. "Guess I should stick to the hurtles, uh??" she said before being startled as the Mantisoid's wings fluttered up and folded back into a scoop then its claws gently but swiftly plucked a squeaking Tsukasa up like an egg and deposited her in the scoop like an overgrown papoose.

Konata clucked. "Cool! A traveler pocket!"

"Wouldn't that only exhaust you faster, Yuki-chan?" asked Kagami and the Mantisoid shook its head. "I don't mean to doubt you, but you're so selfless to a fault that you'd rather endanger yourself than see others suffer."

As though in reply the Mantisoid galloped ahead at a brisk pace, Tsukasa waving back at them. "I guess she's telling you to go suck an egg," Konata quipped. "Maybe she should think of trading a doctor career for a nun!"

"Konata, it's not funny," Kagami snapped, suddenly sober and concerned. "We...we have to think seriously about what to do if there's nothing at this place that can help her and the next chance is too far away in time. I mean, we're a long way from home. Yuki-chan's home, and she half believes that she won't make it before she reverts to her basic nature, so we've got to prove her dead wrong or else a lot of others besides us will be, understand?"

"What you talking about??"

"Konata, if Miyuki's mind totally disappears, she'll be an entirely different creature. She told us how incredibly dangerous she could be. If she suddenly flips without any warning, we might have to – to do something I pray we won't, not just to save us but many others. Only, I – I don't have the heart to try it, even if I knew how...but you might be – able to do it."

"Do what? What you talking about?" Konata asked then blinked aback. "What the frig you talking about?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about, tank girl!"

Konata braced, grudgingly getting it and tartly riposted; "You're crazy, Kagami! I'd never do that!"

"You may be forced to!"

"Me?? Why me??"

"Because you're more dispassionate and ruthless than I am and you know a heck a whole lot more about – about stopping all sorts of different things all kinds of ways than I do."

"'Stopping'! Say what you really mean!"

"I – I can't!"

"Well, you're wrong! Besides that's all just sims!!"

"Suddenly it's different??"

"Shit, Kagami, what kind of freakizoid you take me for??"

"All that talk about being more manly than me – so manly you'd even marry me – and you can't even step up to the plate!"

"You're outta your skull, Kagami! I'm no – no friggin' ninja! Yuki-chan's my – my friend! More!!" she blurted, only chagrin curbing her tears. "How – How can you think that I'm like that??"

"Because that's the way you come off half the time. Cocky. Calculating. Cold."

"Well I'm not! I might be a weirdo and a geek but I got feelings too!"

"I'm sorry, Konata. Sometimes I forget, and I didn't mean that – that you'd be all alone – 'doing it', if we could at all. Even if Yuki-chan gives us the chance – which she's not because she wouldn't want us trying to go to sleep knowing her blood's on our hands!"

"What you saying? That she'll throw herself off a cliff first?"

"I – I hate to say it...but if it comes to that, when she knows she's just one instant away from losing it forever, maybe – maybe we shouldn't stop her."

"That's crazy too!"

"You once said it yourself, even if you were joking; that Yuki-chan has a sense of honor that'd make a samurai cry – and you know what they do if they fail!"

"No, Kagami!" Konata gushed with a vehemence taking Kagami aback. "Friends don't let friends jump off cliffs – or wax them either! That's sicko wacko! Freak, I love moe girl as much as – as –!!" she whirled aside for dragged moments if catching her composure or more before facing Kagami with older eyes. "If – it ever happens that beauty's gonna be a beast for good, then I'll deal with her all by myself in my own way, because – I'm the one who dragged her into this. 'Caused all of this!"

Stunned by sudden empathy, Kagamin shook her head. "No, Konata. Life's not a video game that you replay or peek ahead a few moves. And the worst thing you can do is let Yuki-chan know that you feel guilty like that. It's one thing knowing you may die, but to leave for heaven knowing you left others in misery...you might as well plunge a sword through her soul too. But till then, we really need your brains and wits to – 'think', understand?"

Konata's jade eyes widened in dismay before with misgivings, solemnly nodded, and quavering for a loss of words Kagami patted the blue-tressed one's shoulder and turned to quietly trudged on up-hill, only silence and twittering birds coloring their grim muddled thoughts.

'How strange!' Kagami thought. 'Of all the times I've been skittish of being all alone with Konata with no one around for miles, the dangerous thoughts I was afraid of escaping and bursting in our faces have been shoved aside by our concern and love for someone else. Maybe fate's being merciful. I really don't know how to handle Konata. Sometimes the way she looks at me makes me stammer and tremble, as though I really was a bunny facing a sly dangerous predator and I should run away, but then there's something about her that keeps me locked in her orbit and clouds my common sense and melts me meek before this suave idiot. If I only knew what it was holding me to her – more; of who I and what I really am I'd be so relieved I could die, but till then it's like I'm in a limbo of hell...

- - - - -

Osato froze in his tracks on the rocky forest floor. "Listen! Heard that? Like a very faint echo?"

"Like a girl screaming and shrieking in blood-curdling terror the next hill over the last couple of minutes?" Uzi quipped, shaking her head in sympathy and dismay. "Poor thing! Maybe there's time to save the other two! Call the police!"

"And say what? That a Hulking mutant possibly alien mantis is nibbling a couple of native worshipers who served it colossal shrimp? My reputation will go down in laughing flames! Remember, as environmental and culturally despoiling outsiders we're not supposed to interfere in any native rituals or lifestyles in this area."

"Suddenly a green anthropologist too?"

"It'd be too late by the time police got here anyway. Look, you wanna stay an ethical grad slinging burgers or own a third summer home in Rio by Christmas?"

"Gee, that thing's stink's a stronger trail than their footprints!"

- - - - -

The forest slope abruptly flattened out and beyond the trees they saw a mountainside highway.

"Coastal highway, right?" Konata finally spoke and Kagami nodded.

"This should pass near our hotel going that way, and near that palace place on the hill going the other way, or at least connect with another road leading to it."

They ducked in the brush as a McDonalds truck rolled by. "Man, what I'd do for two all beef patties with special sauce and slice of cheese on a toasted sesame seed bun – and double the tomato, right now! Or even a charred chestnut from a cheap road stand."

"Oh, and just how you going to pay? With your impish harelipped smile? We'll follow the road from here in the forest and we'll be safe from being picked up by police or rangers. Worst to worst we'll hitch back to the hotel."

"You – 'hitch', Kagamin?" Konata said like it was something good girls didn't do. Kagami blushed.

"Always a first time, Konata."

"How about Yuri-chan – or we just tell the driver that she's really cosplaying?" asked Konata just as they both started at a sudden far rustling and thumping in the woods and saw the Mantisoid pounding over boulders and fallen trees toward them, with Tsukasa enveloped in its wings whooping and ecstatically waving.

"Wheee!! That was fun!! Hi Onee-chan! Oh, you've got to try this! Yuki-chan's so fast and she scampers up tall trees and bounces between them like a badminton ball!! It's awesome! Even better than riding a horse and roller coaster at the same time!"

"I'm glad you're having fun, Tsukasa. I wish I could sweep our ulcers under the rug like that!"

"Off Tsukasa! My turn!"

"Konata!!" scolded Kagami before facing the Mantisoid. "Yuri-chan! We're worried sick thinking about you and here you are wasting your energy trotting around like this!! I thought you had far more intelligence and sense!"

"What's this??" Konata said, reaching up to pick a few feathers clinging around the Mantisoid's busy mouth-parts. "Feathers! Different kinds!"

The Mantisoid burped. "Please beg my pardon," invisible Boy-Miyuki apologized inside their heads like stereo.

"You mean you were – were just chasing birds??" Kagami tactfully said for unwary Tsukasa's benefit.

"I didn't see any birds, being on her back – but then I was too busy holding on while we were exploring!" Tsukasa giggled. "Wow! What a wild ride!"

"Wilder than you thought, Tsukasa," Kagami wryly said then turned contrite to the Mantisoid. "I – apologize for what I said, Yuri-chan. You have to understand we were worried sick about you!"

"It's your welfare that's uppermost on my mind, Kagami-san."

"Oh! Onee-chan! We found that palace's road way up ahead."

"Really!"

"Yes! It winds up the hill all the way from this one further down!"

"How far is it?"

"Approximately three miles," bodiless Boy-Miyuki said.

"Great! Be pitch black by then!"

"Not necessarily, Konata-san. Night doesn't affect my performance in the slightest, however I'd be happy to drop you all off on the road below the compound."

"Drop?"

"I'll leave Tsukasa there then return for you two. The cumulative trip time will be less than a fourth of your continuing on foot and you'll be rested."

Tsukasa whooped; "Oh wow! We're doing it again??"

"You sure you've the energy to do all that?" asked Kagami before Konata waved the plucked feathers. "Uh, I guess it's take-out anywhere for you out here, huh?"

- - - -

"Shit! I see it!! I see it!!"

"Where? Where??" cried Osato, snatching the binoculars from Uzi and peering deep into the dark mountain forest above them beneath a starry twilight where she was excitedly pointing.

"I just caught a glimpse of it. It flashed between those trees right above that ridge headed that way!"

"A glimpse? Are you sure?"

"Hey! For a burgundy Ferrari, a Gucci walk-in closet and a leather-lined Lear, yea I'm damned sure!"

Osato whipped out his sat-phone. "Yuji, you off yet? Well get hopping, man! Here's my GPS! We'd a sighting around a quarter mile north of us vector due south. Roger. It might be running parallel the highway! Got everything? Food, radios, night scopes, infra-red, taser rifles, Geiger counters, nylon nets and gas grenades? Good! Yea, American surplus' is something else! Don't worry, tell the pilot my tab's good as a camel jockey's! We'll keep on its back till you and 'D' squad show up. Good!" He stashed his phone before Uzi's puzzled frown.

"'D squad'?"

"''D' students out for brownie points. With eager reinforcements like that sweeping the whole area, we'll flush that thing out like Ex-Lax!"

- - - - -

'Omigosh!! Tsukasa wasn't kidding!!' Kagami thought in near panic though the Mantisoid's swaddling leathery wings pinned her tight from being thrown out like a pea squeezed out of a pod. She'd ridden horses a few times and was even taken on a gallop, but this was infinitely wilder. It was like being the papoose of a Olympic sprinter, pole vaulter and downhill skier all at once. The Mantisoid bounded like a reckless deer over rocks and fallen trees and craggy slopes, and Kagami often found herself screaming when they leapt over twenty feet into the air in near darkness, brushing thick bristly tree branches and craggy cliff faces on the way.

BAM!!

Landing then springing off a boulder near the same instant.

KONK!!

Off a the rocky side of a ridge like a ping-pong ball.

THUMP! - THUMP!! - THUMP!!

Ricocheting off the trunks of dozens of trees like a stone, rattling Kagami like a rat in a shaken garbage can. A few times the Mantisoid would freeze, its head jerking back and forth like a radar scanner then almost delicately and nimbly picked its way in the darkening forest, and intuitively Kagami had the eerie almost terrifying feeling that she was eavesdropping on a deadly stalking beast – a feeling grimly acknowledged when the Mantisoid suddenly bolted forward and snatched something off the ground then discretely spent a minute or so doing its business out of Kagami's sight but not out of mind. Kagami didn't want to know what it caught and worst. It was enough that she felt a taste of the formidable creature she was welded in back of just above a stinger that reminded her of a harpoon.

'Weren't Miyuki's memories controlling it I wouldn't stand a chance!' Kagami mewed in fright then shame, 'No. I needn't be nervous. Not one bit. Miyuki would die protecting me like a mother lion for its cub. In fact she's too willing to in order to keep us safe..." She contritely stroked the leathery wings encasing her. "These are her arms, holding me tight from harm. I have to return her care and compassion, no matter what. Even if I have to die helping her."

Her thoughts were broken by her shrieking gasp and scream as the Mantisoid abruptly took off like a fly jumping a slapping hand and they were off, pounding up the hillside as her stomach churned like a martini vigorously shaken and stirred, and once Kagami actually lost her cookies, but so high were the 'g's of her ride that her lips' erupting contents never touched her or the Mantisoid, but streamed outward like a fire hose much as what happened in "Space Cowboys."

'Why's she doing this?? Surely Yuki-chan can't believe that twins thrill alike – I hope! Maybe she's forgotten I'm back here? Or is she just being mischievous?? Or maybe she's rushing because she left Tsukasa all alone in the dark woods? Yes, yes, that sounds more like it. I hope!'

Kagami barely realized their abrupt stop in a forest gravel road and fortunately the wings around her unfurled and lowered Kagami to the ground since her shaky sandals were unsure exactly where that was.

"Onee-chan!!" Tsukasa happily cried, hopping up and down like a thrilled child. "Wasn't that so AWESOME! It's oodles better than anything at Disney World!!"

"Uh,..yea...uh??" Kagami burbled in a reeling world, dizzily stumbling and tripping in her sandals as she staggered off the road and bumped into the one of the two fuzzy identical telephone poles she tried to barf a dry heave behind.

"You okay, Onee-chan? Did you wet in your shawl too?"

"Guess I'm still in the spin cycle!" Kagami panted, wiping lips with a leaf. "Yu – Yu – Yuki-chan! I want to talk to you – !!" she hotly started but to empty air as the Mantisoid vanished like it never was. "Why do I have the feeling she's getting back at me for something?"

"Com'on, Onee-chan! Yuki-chan wouldn't ruffle a fly."

"No, but that Mantisoid is also her subconscious wide awake and it wouldn't surprise me if it's zinging us for things we taunted and teased Yuki-chan about but which she's consciously way too polite to complain about!" Kagami's lips suddenly curled a wicked vengeful smile. "Well then, that ought mean that Konata's horrid verbal sexual abuse on Yuki-chan's really in for it! Eh-Eh-Eh!!"

"Onee-chan!!"

"Just joking. So this is the road, huh?"

"Yes, it turns up that rise and you can see the place. You can smell seaweed and orka with a touch of ginger cooking too!" Her tummy gurgled like squealing mice. "Oh, sorry!"

"Least it has something to growl on! Tsukasa, it's important that we zip our lips about Yuki-chan. Remember, other people won't see Yuki-chan as harmless as we do. Any slip of the tongue could doom her!" She chuckled as Tsukasa imitated zipping her lips.

Actually that's a lie, Kagami thought to herself; The only way Yuki-chan could be doomed is if she keeps her inner Mantisoid at bay. To think how much I knock her for being a saint, I wish I'd half as much courage as she's showing to trust her fate to us because without it she's lost in more ways than one.

No!

We MUST find those rocks, please God!

The twins started up the crunching gravel road and were soon in sight of a compound with high stone walls and massive red wood wooden gates for doors.

"Wow! Look at that!" Kagami said. "Definitely not New Age Shinto."

"It looks a lot like a Tokugawa era palace, Onee-chan. Shoguns used to build summer palaces with high walls and gates to keep out assassins before they lost power and religious sects then squatted in and turned them into monasteries."

"Tsukasa, I'm impressed! See what studying late at night does for you? Makes you absolutely brilliant!"

"But it was on the quiz show!"

"As I was saying, be on our best behavior. Unless they're incredibly rude they'll at least offer us the courtesy of some food and some information about any shrines they might sponsor. Remember, Tsukasa, we're not lost. We're just – pilgrimagers."

"Without luggage or money or real clothes?"

"Uh...er, yea...um, well if they ask, just say we're fundamentalist zealots. That'll impress them!"

Just then they heard a faint whooping cry deep the forest grow louder till the Mantisoid burst onto the road before them and Konata popped off the Mantisoid's back, beaming like jetliner headlights with two thumbs up while Kagami smirked.

"WOOOO HOOO!! Rock n' Roll, baby!! GOOD JOB!!" she cried, slapping a high-five of hand and claw. "Yea, Yuki baby!! You are the BUG!! Tom Cruise take a shower!! Man, Santa's deer ain't got nothing on you, babe!!"

"Deer??" Tsukasa squeaked, her effervescence doused cold.

"Get a grip, Tsukasa! And Konata, why not a little louder to tell them we're coming?"

"We're gonna knock anyway, so?"

"It's not like we're asking for a cup of sugar! Places like this are very wary of outsiders spoiling their peace and mediation and they might tell us to move on if you rub them the wrong way!"

"Well, suppose they don't got any 'sugar,' huh?"

"Then we ask for directions and move on. There's bound to be a shrine or two a stone's throw from here."

"The hourglass is trickling, Kagami!" Boy-Miyuki's inner voice warned.

"I know, Yuki-chan, so you'd best wait in the woods right now until we call you about – anything we find."

"How do we do that, Onee-chan?"

"Just whistle, Tsukasa-san," Boy-Miyuki suggested.

"Whistle??"

"I can hear yours a mile away, even in a room."

"Awesome! Super speed, super senses, super strength, mind melding–! Man, I wish I was hatched!!"

"Sometimes I wonder!" quipped Kagami at Konata, getting the others to primp themselves the best they could before the trio proceeded on before the high stone-brick walls and massive and ornate wooden double doors.

"Well, hope they paid their bills!" Konata said.

"Look, we don't know how reclusive they are, so just let me and Tsukasa talk first..." Kagami glanced at Tsukasa. "As I said, keep still and let me do all the talking."

Crestfallen Tsukasa mewed.

Kagami pulled a thick rope soaring to a bell housed in a high loft which crisply pealed, and tried again and again before a lamp above flicked on and a slot in the door slid open and wizen eyes peered out.

"I am the gatekeeper!" announced an old man's gravelly voice. "Who goes there?"

Kagami led Tsukasa and Konata's bow. "A good evening, sir! We are miko of the Washinomiya Shrine on a pilgrimage to homage shires from here to Tokyo and we wish to pay respects on your temple too."

"This late – and not even festival?"

"Er, yes, see – to be true to the suffering of our ancestors, our pilgrimage treks on foot."

"Foot? Where are you sleeping? There are no lodgings in this area!"

"We sleep in harmony with God's creatures of the pristine forest, sir."

"Homeless."

"No no, students, sir!"

"Students??" he perked. "Elementary? Junior High?"

"High School, sir!" Kagami answered with stung self-esteem glancing down at her chest while the gatekeeper's eyes turned away to face many disappointed mumblings before returning. "You reek of shrimp but I don't know you from the farm!"

"Er, no. We – worked there to pay our way."

"Worked? On a pilgrimage? But you're but girls!"

"Hey!" Konata blurted, "I'm an adult!"

"Of all of you, it's ungodly to tell a whopper, little girl."

"She's not miko but she's telling the truth, sir – though I fully understand your assumption. As a miko, I take my vows of sincerity and fidelity very seriously."

"Me too!!" piped Tsukasa. The eyes in the slit quizzically frowned and looked back as though consulting eager others then returned;

"Washinomiya Shrine, did you say?"

"Yes, honorable sir."

"Do you know the priest, Tadao Hiiragi?"

"Dad!" blurted Tsukasa before biting her lower lip.

"You are his lovely daughters?" the eyes looked away and there was a quiet brief commotion then the eyes gleefully returned; "You are most welcome to our monastery for hot food and soft rest, daughters of Hiiragi, but first we need proof of the purity and skill of your most sacred and secret miko arts before you may thread this holy ground. Will you accept the test?"

"Test??" Konata gushed with habitual aversion.

"Quiet Konata!" Kagami hushed her as the twins bowed. "We accept, honorable sir."

(sound over of ancient pipes and reeds) The gates creaked opened and the old but sturdy lavender-robed bearded gatekeeper bowed to them before a compound of quaint peaked buildings and rock gardens and white-pebbled paths. Several very old but spry lavender-robed priests rushed out to unroll a long carpet of cobweb-fine rice paper out the gate while a geriatric mob of priests scurried and hurriedly hobbled over to line up on both sides of the paper path and flashed tattoo-branded biceps to bear witness. One with a pair of red bamboo brooms scurried over and stood before the twins;

The gatekeeper gravelly and solemnly uttered; "Shed your ungodly filthy garments out there then tread this path unmolested into our pristine Shinto sanctuary!"

The twins looked at another then with unabashed reverence for divine tradition doffed their shawls and sandals bare and bowed as they took the offered brooms and gingerly stepped upon the delicate paper then simultaneously assumed elegant karate-like stances up on their dainty toes which stepped and swiveled as their ballet-like martial arts poses brandished and whirled and knocked their brooms together like battle staffs in an opera as they moved down to the end of the carpet then bowed.

The priests excitedly chatted among themselves while the gatekeeper nodded admiringly at the barely wrinkled paper wake their footsteps left.

"Indeed. your miko hearts are pure as mountain snow. Enter dear cold and hungry nymphs!" He warmly said with a deep bow to theirs before he grimaced at the thoroughly shredded paper trail Konata left following the twins. "Bah! Otaku!"

"Er, she wishes to convert!" Kagami hastily asserted just a priest just slightly younger than the gatekeeper came up and bowed.

"Please follow my apprentice to your quarters for the night and refresh to join his venerable one, Our Venerable Master at supper," the gatekeeper stated and the girls bowed and tailed their escort from grinning priests watching them leave.

"Apprentice??" blurted Konata of their new escort while crossing arms over her bareness. "I didn't know they took in old folks as apprentices!"

"Er, no," their grinning escort respectfully answered. "Many of the rituals that advance to the next level are extremely challenging. I've been trying for forty years."

"Forty years??" the trio blurted.

"A lesson to you, Konata!" admonished Kagami. "Do your own homework!!"

"Huh! Least it makes me feel better, just because I didn't clip my toenails enough!" Konata snapped then petulantly asked their grinning escort. "Say, what's the whole point of that silly paper walk in the buff stuff, anyway?"

"Don't be rude, Konata!" Kagami chided. "It's obviously some ancient inscrutable rite of great historical and clerical and metaphysical significance in this sect, right sir?"

"Actually, it's because most here haven't seen women close up since the war!"

- - - - -

"How??" cried a bewildered and exasperated Osato on the slope just below the highway. "How could they just 'disappear'? How??"

"I'm telling you, they're just not around here! No more footsteps and its stink's stopped too!" Uzi said. "Check your camera's infra-red if you don't believe me!"

"I have! Up to a mile sweep! I'm even picking up rabbits and foxes but not a trace of them! It's impossible! It ought be sticking out like a sore thumb, and those girls couldn't have climbed this far in this terrain!"

"Or they're not on foot anymore, ever thought of that?" Uzi grimly said.

"Uh? But of course! And wolfing them down would not only mask the heat of their bodies but slow it down some too, right?"

"I wouldn't know. Haven't been fat for ANY reason!"

"That means it could be in the underbrush or hiding in a cave or something digesting them off! Look for anything! Bent twigs, rumpled soil, fresh human bones, anything!"

"And what do I do if I bump into the damn thing in the dark, huh? Offer it dessert? Forget it!"

Osato's sat-phone chirped. "Yes! Good! We're below the highway now! Land the copter there on my GPS and disperse the boys then do some aerial surveillance with the night scope, grid sweep, a mile radius and fun out! Check everything! Yea! This green bastard's gonna have to be Houdini to slip this net!"

- - - - -

"I – I dunno, Onee-chan!" Tsukasa skittishly said, her chin low on the steamy water and peeking around their little bathhouse's hot tub. "I've this creepy feeling that we're – we're being watched right now, like ever since we came here!"

"Don't be paranoid!" Kagami chided. "Besides it's rude to our hosts!"

"Right, I mean so what this bathhouse has mirrors for walls and ceilings, huh??" Konata quipped, only temporally distracted from ogling Kagami who self-consciously sank even lower into the water.

Konata sighed to herself;

'You're so shy, Kagamin! If only you weren't so stuck-up we could have such awesome fun together, like how I started with Saaya-chan in junior high, but somehow you're even more special than her even though she'd way nicer boobs. It's like you have a magnetic moe even stronger than Yuki-chan's that I can't understand but it's holding from checking out other chicks. It'd be so cool if you felt the same way, and somehow I think you do only you're too snobby and proud to admit it! I mean, you keep hanging with me even though I eat your homework and embarrass you in public and piss you off like a fire hydrant. You're bright and beautiful yet you don't even look at boys at school – heck, you even duck their hits, yet you're always running to my class to sit across from me for lunch and give me a hard time! How come? When you come to think of it, we don't really have all that much in common at all yet you're always there eating my shots and yelling back! You must either be a pig for punishment or something else, and it's that something else I'm going to work on, Kagamin. One day you'll see things my way and you won't believe the thrills we'll have exploring life outside the envelope as long as you don't get all touchy-feelly 'bout it. Just touchy. Oh, you think my dating sims are perverted, but they're really awesomely liberating life lessons, to think in ways others can't or don't dare imagine! Like, I've been thinking this way since six-years old and I'm no axe-murderer in the real world – and you call me 'immature'! One day I'll get you to understand, and in fact I think that's why you like hanging with me even though you act like you're forced to; you're hoping I'll be the first to crack your shell but you're too proud and stubborn to admit it. Like how you were just faking sleep back on that reef when I was pressed up against your smooth cool back and stroked your shivering thigh. I even heard you sigh and snuggle back tighter against me, don't say you didn't!

Man! If only things weren't so desperately different then! Still, you said the magic word back in the forest, didn't you? Scolding me for not being 'manly' enough to even marry you! Why would you gush such a thing unless you were disappointed that I wasn't measuring up to your hopes? Suppose I did, Kagamin? Suppose you had no more excuses to buck me? Suppose you were backed into a place where you couldn't shy?...

Drat! Too bad Tsukasa's in here! It'd be tank moving on you and watching you scold and sputter and sigh and tremble like a trapped little bunny who won't run away because she's more afraid of missing out an awesome side of her that's teasing her stuck-up shame. How much will it take to tip you over, Kagami? Like, it could all be over in an hour and there'd be no more fighting, no more yelling, no more smirks borrowing homework ever after. We'd be friends like you can't imagine and we can finally play dating H-sims together for even more fun on sleep overs! You'd finally be an umber-liberated woman of the future just like me!

Yes, Kagamin, I'll help crack your shell, and you'll keep scolding and chiding at me every time I try but you won't turn your back or walk away because you want me to to get your wonder and misery over with.

Funny. I shouldn't have called you a bunny.

A moth's far better!

- - - -

Later, in their spartan quarters they donned canary-yellow kimonos with a difference; "Mini-yukatas??" Kagami said in dismay of their mid-thigh high garments. "Who ever thought of this??"

Tsukasa tittered; "But they're kind of cute though, aren't they, Onee-chan? Like a Chakichaki Girl!"

"It's not exactly modest to tradition, but I guess someone thought you could attract more young people to the old ways better this way."

"I dunno, Kagamin..." Konata opinion, "Why do I get the feeling that these old fogies are more lively in this place than they let on?"

Their escort knocked the door and exchanged bows and led them to an old but elegant dining hall to kneel at the Master's table before dozens of priests dutifully eating in silence while sneaking glances up the table at the leggy girls. Though that somewhat dismayed Kagami, her famished state had to admit the rice and fried soba was surprisingly good and the fried seaweed and orka sprinkled with ginger excellent, though they very politely shied the shrimp bowl. Ironically, Kagami was relieved that Konata's ungraceful pigging out distracted others of her and Tsukasa's own portions ravaging.

Looking a thousand years old with his gray goatee and wizen looks, the grinning Old Master nodded to Kagami. "Yes, my kawaii dove, I remember your father from my visit to the Okata seminary many many years ago. He was quite the character with red kitchen sinks if I recall."

Kagami shyly chuckled. "I wouldn't have believed it hadn't Tsukasa found some pretty risque pictures of him while we were cleaning our rooms, O Venerable One!"

"Yes! We never knew his thing was so –"

"Tsukasa! Er, but he'll be elated to know he was remembered so fondly, O Venerable One. We're so full and grateful for your hospitality, we wish to pay thanks at your shrine...if there's one nearby."

"As a matter of fact, we do, my precious dove. Just outside the south wall. The Shrine of Delicious Dew, consecrated to our ancient protector, Hum-bert-san, a retired Ming dynasty general who guarded the children of royalty and warriors who left for battle."

"But isn't Ming Chinese?"

"Er, because of overwhelming pressure against his unconventional views, he esca –er, was exiled here. Thus, in addition to deep mediation and consoling lost souls and housewives, we run an orphanage and free local day care and sponsor local kiddie pageants."

"How honorable, O Venerable One. We wish to extend our full respects to all your good work in your shrine, though it might take a little time..."

"Take all you need, my precocious dove! The longer the holier we say! And being our guests I shall grant you all special privilege to the shrine's inner chamber to give your blessings – and fortunately, we've in our keep some old but clean miko attire to dwell such a sacred area."

"Er, can't wait, O Venerable one. You're most gracious."

Tsukasa blurted, "Does your shrine have any Pebbles from Heaven, Oh virtual one??"

"Pardon?"

"Er, she's a rock fan!" Kagami hastily said. "Er, would you have a telephone we can use to call our folks and tell then of the wonderful time we're having here?"

"Yes, I was about inquire of notifying your parents of your situation myself, my luscious dove. We don't want to be sue – er, accused of harboring juveniles without parental consent, you know. Especially since you've left all your belongings thirty miles away."

"Er, we were in a rush to start our quest – er, pilgrimage!" Konata blurted.

"I see. Then if you wish, we can have someone fetch your apparel and bring them here for you; it'll give you a chance to longer partake the pleasures of our sanctuary at your leisure."

"Er, that's most gracious, O Vernerable One," Kagami politely said with a bob.

The Old Master nodded and looked quizzical. "Izumi, is that correct? I believe an Izumi's on our patronage mailing list. Any relation?"

"Huh, hope not. I mean, dad's not exactly the religious type, O-'V'."

"Too bad. I envy him for having such a – unconventional daughter. A young woman's mind in a child's dewy body! Life must be interesting for you, grasshopper."

"Konata. Well, it gets kinda wild at the cosplay cafe where I work."

"Really? How providential! We were thinking of expanding our shrine's concession stands and paraphernalia shops along those lines too. Would you be interested in managing a similar cafe here?"

Konata perked. "Managing?? Mean be my boss?? Pick my crew?? Design their costumes??"

"Er – she's committed herself to five years employment – O Venerable One!" blurted Kagami, "She hates to break promises, you know?"

"Too bad. She'd made a splendid ass – set for our side-operations here. Ummm. Oh, my fetching dove, you've hardly touched your green tea. Would you like another blend?"

"Uh, no thank you, O Venerable One. I'm just – on a diet that's all," Kagami said, feeling queer at the approving nods running around the table.

"But it's good, Onee-chan! I don't taste anything 'funny' date-ra – Ow!!"

Kagami smiled sweetly at the Master while Tsukasa rubbed her shin. "Er, one's sweet tooth is another's cavity, right, O Venerable One? Gochisousama!"

After supper, the girls bowed the Master good-night and followed his directions outside to an alcove with a nineteen-forties phone booth. Kagami shook her head. "Wow! What a antique!"

"Yea! Superman's closet! That'd grab a mint on eBay!"

"Er, it's for phones, Konata, see?"

"That's a phone? All black?? What's that thing on it?" asked Tsukasa.

"It's called a dial, Tsukasa."

"So how you work it?"

"You just use the holes with your number! No, you turn it, not push it!"

Rolling eyes, Kagami picked up the phone and dialed.

"So what are we going to tell them?" Tsukasa asked.

"We'll just have play it by ear, Tsukasa. Oh, hello? Er, hi Matsuri! No, we're alright, we're alright! Really! Hello? Dad? Hi dad! Yes, we're safe and sound. Not a scratch, see? Hi mom! No mom, the storm missed us so we came back ashore alright. Com'on dad, you act like the twister sucked us up and blew us away, ha-ha! No, we couldn't call you last night because – because the twister blew all the phone lines down. Cell? Uh, er – they got blown down too, I guess. Uh, we're – staying over as guests at a temple tonight that's – near an old schoolmate of ours who transferred out, er – Ranma? Yea. Uh, well, we're – staying over Ramna's place for now. Oh, we're not imposing – they're elated to have us over to talk about old times and all that, eh-eh. No, no, you don't have to come all this way and pick us up right now. Honest! We're a-okay! In fact, we'd like to stay over a while longer since we're having so much fun! How long a while? Uh...two weeks maybe? No? No really dad, we'd really like to stay... Please?? No? Just because we're having so much fun? Gotta get back home to study? Oh, yea..."

In desperation she glimpsed Tsukasa and Kontata. "Er, but you see, Ranma's dad – he's like, a retired professor and educational games inventor and our testing out his awesome games already have Tsukasa and Konata scoring a ninety in trig and economics tests!" she asserted with guiltily rolling eyes. "No, I'm not – not joking, dad. Cross my heart! Tsukasa sings cosines like a robin and Kona's eating history like Kim-chee-! I can't hear you over the laughing in the back! That's better! Yes, it's true! Yea. Tsukasa just can't wait to knock you out with her scores!..." Kagami's eyes suddenly bugged-out. "What?? Take all summer? All vacation?? But it just started! But dad, it shouldn't take us that long to get her home – I – I mean, that's – kind of long to just – sit around here studying, dad – huh? You insist? You AND mom insist?? Uh, well...if you all really feel that way about it...er, sure, our – host won't mind. No, no, you don't have to wire him Tsukasa's dowry. What was that, mom? What did dad just mumble – that now he won't have to bribe anyone to enroll her next term? Oh, slip of the tongue. Sure. No problem. Oh – we can do with a little spending money, so is it okay if I use my credit card when I get it – er, use it? Great. Er, sure; I'll get all the books Tsukasa can eat with it. Take care of yourself, mom and dad. Yes, we love you – and tell Matsuri and Inori don't get a hernia laughing!"

Kagamai hung up and eyed Tsukasa severely; "How I spent all my summer vacation! You're gonna be pulling some deep over-nighters when we get back, kiddo!"

"My turn!" Konata said, dialing home. "Yo dad! I'm hanging with Kaggie for a coupla weeks. Yea, she'll thaw, I'll score! Right! See ya!" She hung up and shrugged at the gape-mouthed twins. "What??"

Shaking her head Kagami sighed then grimly looked back. "Now the hard sell, since Yuki-chan doesn't need any learning 'vacation'!" she uttered. "Her mom must be worried sick!"

Kagamin dialed; "Hello? Is this the Takara residence? Er, hi, this is Kagami. Kagami Hiiragi. Hiiragi Kagami? Right, that's the one. Er, look, just so you know, Yuki-chan's all safe and sound with us and we didn't get a scratch! Huh? No, she wasn't playing hopscotch – uh? Er, sure she has enough blankets...yes, she's brushing her teeth– Tell her to pick up what on the way home from her sleep over? But she wasn't on any sleep – uh, er – yes, whatever you say. m'am. Sure. We had lots of fun in the backyard. Yea, lots of pillow talk. Oh, she's told us more about herself than we ever dreamed. Yea, I don't think any movie's ever going to be scary enough for us anymore. Uh? Er, she's in the shower right now...er, in fact, she was going to ask you if she could do a – an incommunicado deep-study homework sleep-over marathon between our house and Konata's for a couple of weeks, you know? She says being out of the house is boosting her self-esteem enough to date a dentist one day, ha-ha. Tell her it's okay? Great! What's that? Tell her to only shower at Konata's when her dad's out? Er, sure, I'll tell her that. Great! Who do you have on hold? A saleslady? Two salesladies? Er sure, I'll let you go, Mrs. Takara. Bye!"

Kagami hung up and slumped against the wall in relief. "Is there a god of ditz? It's hard to believe she's really something out of a Predator movie!"

- - - -

"Alright, infra-red sweep negative, so we're sweeping further south," crackled Yuji's voice on Osato's transceiver. "We think the sniffer's caught smelly ground traces around hoof-type impact tracks at wide staggered intervals."

"You mean like it's – hopping??" wondered Osato aloud at their small lantern-lit base camp.

"If it is, a kangaroo might as well hang it up. You don't see landing strides this far apart outside a cheetah."

"Uh. Not bad on a full stomach too."

"Excuse me, sir?"

"Just – thinking of a snack, Yuji, Hold."

"Sure explains a lot if he's right; this thing could be miles away by now!" Uzi mentioned over an area map. "Besides it has wings too, doesn't it?"

Mulling, Osato nodded; "Good job, Yuji. I'll re-distribute the boys to your area – and keep looking up in the trees too! You don't need any uninvited guests dropping in on you, right?"

"On that, boss! The guys wanna be around to use their million!"

"There're several reclusive estates and retreats further south," Uzi informed. "Maybe we ought give them a head's up that this thing's headed their way."

"Mmm. Yuji; use the missing-children search party gambit in case you need to flush any outputs of civilization, got it?"

"Got it, boss. Out!"

"Not thinking like a trapper, kid sis," Osato smugly said to Uzi's quizzical look. "I don't want to give anyone a heads'-up that our prize is headed for them. I want to BE there when it does!"

- - - -

"'Proper miko attire', huh? Why am not surprised??' Kagami surily sighed at the ultra-sheer diaphanous hakama and kimono blouses presented them in their quarters. "They can whip these up in a flash but can't even find us any underwear!"

"Least you two look like mikos; I'm freakin' 'I Dream of Jeannie'!" Konata sniffed of her filmy harem-like outfit. "Man, this is dad's Sun City to a 'H'!"

"I hardly expected to see YOU complaining, Miss Cosplay!"

"Hey, our costumes are wild, but they leave a little for the customer's imagination – especially with our cover charge!"

"Yes, Onee-chan! We might as well be naked again!" whined Tsukasa.

"I think that's the whole idea in this horny place, Tsukasa," Kagami wryly rued. "I agree it's sacrilegious in the normal world, but we've no choice. We've got to take the shrine, so stiffen your lips, lift your chins, throw out your chests and march out proud!"

"Ain't got no chest – but I'm proud!" Konata retorted, and with negative enthusiasm and high chagrin, they went out into the night and passed under the torch-lit orange torii and between two stone shishi foxes guarding the short gravel lane to stop to wash their hands and gurgle at a stone basin and proceeded into the quaint incense fragranced main hall. They rang a bell, bowed twice, clapped their hands twice, bowed again and they entered the Haiden oratory section and stopped at a low partition separating them from an interior section, the heiden, and beyond that another, the honden, hosting a large cabinet surrounded by a shimenawa rope.

"As far as you go, Konata," Kagami reverently instructed at the partition. "Only non-laity can enter the heiden."

"Kiddin'!"

"No, we take being miko very seriously, and even we can't enter the honden sanctum over there where the sacred objects are."

"Com'on! I'm no foreigner American! I'm trying to help out!"

"I can't see how. Sacred objects are always locked in the honden and can't be seen except by priests themselves."

"You mean even if they have it we can't get at it?"

"Not without being burglars."

"Then what's the point of coming here practically naked besides helping all the hiding peeping Tom-sans out there drool?"

"The point's giving Yuki-chan every chance to return to normal! Alright, Tsukasa, do your thing." Kagami directed to her sister who drew a deep breath and puckered her lips and blew.

Konata frowned. "So blow already! I don't hear a thing!"

"She's imitating a dog whistle so not to alert anyone, Konata."

"Uh? Oh."

They suddenly heard a flapping and rustling high above and the Mantisoid dropped right among them and even Konata jumped. "Geeze!! You do that better than Batman!"

"How'd you get in here without being seen, Yuki-chan?" Kagami asked after the Mantisoid took a homaging bow at the partition.

"All their gawking eyes are on you, not on skylights," Boy-Miyuki voiced in their heads, "Though it was very difficult reaching the wash basin unseen."

"Man, Yuki-chan, you're twice a ninja master!"

"Quiet, Konata! Yuki-chan, can you tell whether there's any meteorite stuff here?"

"I feel a very very weak tingle emanating from the hoyden, from that cabinet."

"Weak?" Kagami's heart sank "How weak?"

"Very. Perhaps only fragments of meteorites containing Zelta crystal particles than significant pieces."

Konata asked, "Saying it's not enough to do the job?"

"Only the trans-stator's enough to 'do the the job'; Kona-chan. The best any meteorite's Zelta crystal emissions can do is temporarily stimulate my dual DNA strands just enough to partially re-morph me into a human."

"Would it help if you got closer?" Tsukasa asked.

"It might. Only..." the Mantisoid said with reservations at the hoyden, and Kagami mulled this and took it's claws in her hands.

"I'm not a priest so I can't formally confer you, Yuki-chan, but if you sincerely promise to be a miko when you're normal – er, human again, it's just as good as a vow."

The Mantisoid bowed. "I so promise."

"Good, then let us enter the heiden. Keep out, Konata!"

"Hey! I'll take the promise too!"

"Konata, I wouldn't want you to damn your soul," Kagami wryly snapped, going through the partition gate with Tsukasa and the Mantisoid up before to the bamboo gate guarding the cabinet. "Any stronger, Yuki-san?"

"A little."

"Just a little??"

"Just a moment...I smell something – metallic. Trace elements... In fact, it's all around."

"Incense?"

"No. Intuitively, it tastes like lead."

"Lead?"

"So?" Konata called from behind.

"Lead in the paint used around here..." The Mantisoid leaned toward the red cabinet as though whiffing it. "And over that."

"Double so what?"

"The chances are the lead in the pigment is attenuating most of what little Zelta crystal emissions there are within."

"You're saying it's blocking the radiations from reaching you?" Kagami asked.

"That's correct."

"Well, suppose you went inside and got right up to kissing it?" called Konata.

"Lead's hazardous to one's health if you kiss it, Kona-chan. Besides, I doubt it'd make much difference."

"Then we just break the lock and flash the stuff! That ought be enough, right?"

"I couldn't do that, Kona-chan! It's sacred!"

Kagami soberly sighed. "Yuki-chan, I fully understand. You know how devout an miko I am, but do you have any idea just what this shrine's consecrated to?"

"I'm aware, Kagami-chan, but I can't show a bias toward any belief."

"Jeese! This's heck of a time to go holy roller on us!" Konata angrily snapped, jumping the partition and standing taut before the beast. "You're on the verge of staying a monster bug forever and you're worried over some horny old guys getting their precious jewels stroked by us? Look, I had to shove my hand up that shit you got for mouths to cram shrimp down your throat which'll creep out me short for years! Now you crash that friggin' cabinet and zap yourself before I shove my hand up your gross stinger butt!!

The Mantisoid stood silent then turned away but Konata jumped before it. "No, it ain't that easy! I swear, Yuki-chan, you fly off to do any hari-kiri shit and I swear I'll climb this roof and throw myself off and break my friggin' neck and it'll be on your head! And I'm not friggin' kiddin'!!"

"I'm not Kanata buckling under your father, Kona-san!" Yuki-chan bitterly snapped. "You can't blackmail me!"

"I'm not blackmailing you! Here's my special delivery; I always wanted to meet mom – get it??" Konata snapped with a stony resolution that made the twins gasp. The Mantisoid stared Konata's glaring eyes then wavered and turned in a circle, its sharp hoofs rapping the floor like frustrated tap dancers before it plopped down with its back turned. "What? You want me to push you there now? Forget it! I'll save you the trouble–!!" Konata snapped, vaulting the partition to the Hoden.

"Konata-!!" Kagami barked so abruptly it cut through Konata's fire, and coolly Kagami considered the two then faced the Mantisoid. "Alright, Yuki-chan. You feel that strongly about it, then you're way purer than most of us," she grimly said, walking by Konata and soberly paused. "I guess people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. No, I don't mean you, Konata. With the – thoughts I've had... maybe I really – really shouldn't be a miko anyway!" Looking around and finding a broom, she pulled down the honden's shimenawa cordon around the cabinet and shoved the broom stick into it's door handles.

"Onee-chan!!"

"Stay there, Tsukasa! You had nothing to do with this!" admonished Kagami and started to pry the handles open when another hand firmly grabbed the stick.

"Hey! I'm the barbarian here, right?" Konata gently but firmly stated at Kagamin, her eyes regarding Kagami with a soft new respect and admiration. "Go back and look out, Princess Snow. Don't let me get started on you too! Go!"

Tears almost welled Kagami's eyes and she weakly nodded and let go of the broom and went back by the squatting Mantisoid, and confused and angrily, Tsukasa jumped before the Mantisoid;

"How – How can you let them do this, Yuki-chan?? They're risking their souls for you! Why can't you help yourself that hard too?? How??"

"It's not her, Tsukasa, it's us!" Kagami gently assured with dawning comprehension. "She's proving how much her race honors our culture and ways! Showing that we don't ever have to fear her race. They could've conquered us in a heartbeat back when all we had were stone knives and bearskins but they didn't! Instead they became part of us! I wish more human people just half honored their beliefs as much as she is without having them! I'm not even sure I can do what she's doing...which doesn't say much for how deep my faith is I'm afraid. So I guess Konata and I will be finally be ending up the same warm place after all."

"Onee-chan!!"

"I meant the HOT place, Tsukasa."

"Oh..." Tsukasa looked bemused then slowly nodded. "I – I think I understand. I'm sorry, Yuki-chan."

The serrated tip of a claw gently patted the miko's shoulder then came a creak from the hoyden as Konata applied pressure and wood creaked and cracked. Wincing, quietly and solemnly Kagami and Tsukasa turned their backs and walked off a few paces as, with Konata's final yank, the cabinet doors popped to reveal a jewel-encrusted interior of semi-precious jade and garnet and turquoise and polished coal-like stones, and on a shelf something large wrapped in a snow-white gold-fringed blanket which Konata undid to reveal an engraved chest that she heaved out and half-dropped on the floor.

"Man, I sure hope this isn't like the 'Lost Arc'!" Konata quipped as she pried opened the heavy wood lid and removed a small round mirror and a small sword and several amulets and bracelets, all encrusted with stones similar those decorating the cabinet.

"Cool! This stuff looks a hundred years old! But I really expected way more flashy stuff for this whole place to show off."

"It's not a jewelry box, it's a shrine, Konata!" Kagami chided. "Those are objects which the old ones believed contain the kami spirits of special parts of their world! That's their true inspirational and spiritual value!"

"Oh. So that's why it's not guarded more, huh? Well, there're all kinds of cool gems and stones and stuff. I guess it's one or a couple of them that's zapping you, uh Yuiki-chan? Ain't you gonna peek?" she asked the quiet Mantisoid. "Okay, I get it. Well, you're not a partner in crime just answering a few questions, right? Does it feel any stronger now?"

"Yes," grudgingly uttered Boy-Miyuki's more manly boy-voice.

"Hey, don't sound so sore to someone tryin' to help ya, huh? I'm tryin' to make you my wife!"

"Konata!!"

"Don't be jealous, Kagamin!"

"I'm not jealous! This is a sacred place! Just – get on with it! You've desecrated things enough!"

"Man, the crap I do to keep my chicks happy!" Konata said, taking out the necklace and amulet and bringing them close before the Mantisoid. "Any better?"

"Slightly."

"Man, you're a hard customer! Let's try this –!" Konata said, taking out both stone-encrusted bracelets and hooking them around the still beast's segmented 'wrists' and neck. "There! Any better?"

"A little better. The dark sparkling stones are indeed meteorite fragments containing particles of Zelta crystals."

"Alright! Now we're cooking! They enough to turn you on?"

"Barely – and for only a short while."

"Well, how long will it take?"

"At this mild exposure rate, perhaps two hours for twenty-five percent conversion."

"Two hours??" blurted Konata. "What kinda henshin's that??"

"That long just to get a quarter changed?" Kagami glumly said.

"To look just human enough to evade cursory inspection, yes."

"Can't you just leave here the way you came with those bracelets and keep on changing outside?" Tsukasa nervously asked.

"Outside the further unethicality of that resort, these relics' emissions alone are insufficient. The cabinet's interior is inlaid with similar meteorite fragments whose combined Zelta particle emissions just barely reach my minimal dual DNA metamorphocation activation threshold."

Konata blurted, "You mean you need both the jewelry and cabinet too?"

"You have to stay here??" Tsukasa whined, anxiety doubled. "But suppose someone comes in for midnight prayer??"

"Man, we better hope they'd their jollies for the night!"

Kagami mulled, preening her sheer gauzy gown. "No...they haven't."

"But Onee-chan! If they catch Yuki-chan here! Their holy things all out–!"

"No, Tsukasa. They're not coming in as long as we're in here," Kagami said with sour certainty welling a notion. "That's how we'll give Yuki-chan time in this chamber then clean things up before we leave!"

"Huh? How you figure that?" Konata asked.

"Because by tradition priests won't enter here long as miko are inside to sweep and clean out the dirt and impurities first, though personally I've my doubts it'd make a difference to these guys! But that's what I'm banking on."

"I don't get it, Onee-chan."

"By stalling for their pleasure. Konata –" Kagami signaled the petite blue-hair over. "Guys, I know you're not going to like this, but we've got to suffer through more humiliation here to buy Yuki-chan time."

"For two hours? But how?" Tsukasa asked and with a sly smile Kagami fluttered her 'gown'."

"By giving them a lot more than they hoped to see than us just walking to and back from this place like this! Konata, it looks like I'm back relying on your perversity again."

"Whad'da I do??"

"It's what you know! Like Roman Civilization sims, right?"

"Sure. Like the back of my hand."

"How about orgy dances?"

"Orgeeee??" squeaked Tsukasa, and for once abashed Konata shrugged.

"Huh...sure. A couple."

"Then you lead us off in a couple under the torii and we'll shadow every move you make."

"What??"

"Onee-chan – Orgeeee??"

"We're just faking it, Tsukasa. We're trying to buy Yuki-chan time!"

"Two hours fakin' skimpy dancing I don't do?"

"Strain, Konata! We're relying on you!" asserted Kagami and the other grudgingly nodded and taking a deep breath, strolled out. Kagami looked back. "Sit on it, Yuki-chan!" she told the Mantisoid then helped petrified Tsukasa outside between flame torches under the torii,

"Onee-chan! This is so – embarassing!" Tsukama whined. "I can feel their eyes crawling all over me!!"

"So long as you do then Yuki-chan's alright, right? Don't worry, soon you'll be too busy to notice!"

"But suppose they ask what the heck we're doing?"

"Not that I think they'll complain, but in case just say that that it's another secret ancient miko ceremony they're not supposed to know! Okay guys, let's do the warm up first before the toga stuff. Konata you got both leads, okay?"

"Man! Even the cafe doesn't ask me to do this – even with time and a half!"

"Quit grumbling and wasting time!"

"Right, Onee-chan! Let's get started and get it over with!"

Konata sighed "Alright, alright! Jeeze! Hope they toss us tips! Here we go then! A one and a two and –

"'We want sausage!!..."

And bouncing and flouncing and high kicking under the torii they gave their hidden ogling audience a Vegas floor show of sinuous moves and flashing flesh, and after Konata repeated all her orgy dance moves the fifth time they moved on to impromptu cheerleading stances and pyramids until they slowed down to a crawl. Tried, Tsukasa slumped to the ground.

"Sorry, onee-chan! I'm beat!"

"I know," panted Kagami, wiping her dripping brow. "I must've lost twenty pounds – in two hours! If only dad let me do this home!"

"Yea, great for you but not one tossed yen! Cheapskates!" muttered Konata who looked up and saw dozens of priests coming out of the dark from all sides. "Oh-oh. Show's over."

The Old Master softly clapped his hands. "Magnificent! Superb! Such grace! Such skin! We've never seen any miko dance as that! Live or on cable!"

"Uh, it's a – a highly secret ritual you're not supposed to see," Konata said.

"Well, we have – by accident – and we're just totally blown away – er, are most honored to've witnessed it. We'll give blessings for our good fortune for your arrival here."

"No – wait!" Kagami blurted. "You can't go in yet!"

"No? Why not?"

"Why not? Er, because – because we haven't finished sweeping yet!"

"Oh, I'll have some apprentices do that. You all are obviously exhausted."

"Wait – !!"

Suddenly the Master and priests blinked and gawked up past the trio, and bewildered, the girls turned too and gasped to see, willowy and curvily wrapped in a snow white gold-fringed blanket tied toga-like at the waist by a shimenawa, a pink-tressed creature with bracelets hanging off her slim wrists and necklaces dangling off a slim throat above a creamy canyon cleavage, shakily emerged the shrine on wobbly and weaving sleek silken legginess going up forever.

Tsukasa jumped up, clapping with glee. "Yuki-chan!!"

"Where – Where'd she come from??" blurted the Master, exchanging bewildered looks and excited chatter with other priests while the elated girls ran over to huddle with their staggering reconstituted friend.

Konata clucked. "Alright!! Maxi-moe!!"

"Yuri-chan! You're back!!" Tsukasa cried, steadying whose shoulder.

"She never left, silly!" Kagami chided, almost tears. "How are you feeling, Yuki-chan?"

"Dizzy. Weak. Like – every cell's bubbling like soap froth," Miyuki softly replied in a quavery voice taking them aback.

"Hey!" Konata quietly said. "Still got your guy voice!"

"Momentarily. The exposure period wasn't – strong enough for partial metamorphization when I heard the commotion and came out to assume responsibility from you all for desecrating their shrine."

"Later for that! How long do you think you can stay like this?"

"Not long, I fear."

Kagami anxiously whispered; "If we jump into a cab right now, how far toward home do you think we can get before you start – de-morphing or whatever?"

"I – I wouldn't chance it, Kagami-san."

"Yea, especially after they get wind of what we did to their...Huh??"

"What?" Kagami said asked then taking a double take around them as well while all around them, scores of priests were kneeling prostrate toward Miyuki.

And faint in the far distance came the passing whirling-beat of black helicopter blades.

- - - - # - - - - # - - - - # - - - -

(Sound over of plucked lute in Lucky Star's 'Next Episode' intro)

Well, next time on "Miyuki's Spaced-Out Secret"...

Hi! Miyuki Takara, here! Because Kyoto Animation never gives Tsukasa-chan adequate time to introduce the next episode, I respectfully bow out from my turn to pass it to her. Please have a nice day. Tsukasa-chan?

Uh, yes? I'm on? Oh that's great! Thank you so much, Yuki-chan! It's so nice to have someone who never scolds or gooses you! Uh, I'm Tsukasa, and...and – Oh wow, so much time! Uh, what do I do? Oh – oh yea, play sound clips of the next chapter, right? Okay, I'll put it on here – uh? That's the karaoke button? Sorry. Thanks. Okay, Here it goes:

KONATA: So Yuki-chan, you gonna tell me just how a big bug twice your size can shrink down into a willowy mass of walking moe or what?

TSUKASA: So that's the real reason you're so terrified of dentists!

'D' SQUAD LEADER: Surround the compound! Don't let it escape!!

KAGAMI: Now that we're all alone, Yuki-chan, I – I can finally confide with someone trustworthy about my – my true warped feelings for someone...

HONKY-TONK BARTENDER: Little girl, you just can't come waltzing in here looking like that asking for something like that!

MIYUKI: Actually, Kagami-san, I – I'd many crushes on boys, but – it's only now that I know why I've been so painfully shy of them...

TSUKASA: EKKK!! We're trapped!!

VERNABLE MASTER: Marriage rites?? Why, we'd be delighted!

SADDAM: It will be the mother of all battles!

MIYUKI: Kona-chan, if all seems hopeless and I indeed go wild, I beg of you to grant me one final terrible favor...

KAGAMI: NO, YUKI-CHAN!! DON'T DO IT!!

UZI: OMIGAWD!!...

Next on "Miyuki's Spaced-out Secret": Encounters and Revelations.

I did it!! I did it!! Uh? I screwed it up anyway? Sorry. Can I do it again? No time? Oh. Uh, bye!!

**- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - **

**- - - - - - - - - - - -**

Entirely composed during commutes on iPhone.

Don't leave it to someone else to leave comments and critiques! They will fix and spice the eventual doujinshi manga (and moves the writer to write too! hint-hint!)


	5. Chapter 5

_**Miyuki's Spaced-Out Secret**_

_by Dee Eon_

**Chapter Five**

"Sir–!" crackled Yuji's excited voice over Osato's transceiver. "The sniffers in co-ord A-3, D-1, and F-4 have gone crazy! Heck, you don't even need one here! It's definitely passed this way like a pair of bad socks, zero readings further south!"

"Triangulating vectors!" called out Uzi, eagerly doing the math and plotting over a map; "All converging on location L-4!"

Osato nodded; "This should be interesting! Yuji; all units converge and cordon L-4! I'll be there in ten minutes!!"

- - - - -

They were trailing Konata everywhere in the compound ever since she strolled out to use the phone booth, a train of old robed men with brooms sweeping her wake as though she was tracking mud. "Geeze! You guys are crowding my shadow!"

One led the others' bow. "You wish is our command, O holy Highness Lo-Lee's handmaiden!"

"Ditch the maid stuff already! You don't have to keep saying it over and bowing like a bobble-head doll!"

"It's our duty and honor to service you, no matter what, O holy handmaiden. We await her Highness's next trip to the shrine – which works out in nine minutes, yes?"

"Not bad without a watch!"

"It's three hundred twenty-seven cricket chirps per minute."

"Oh. Should've guessed."

"We live to serve our Pink Incarnated One and the divine nymphs who tend her to your most smallest needs and relief."

"Yea, well I'm sure you're all a help and that's real kind of you, but I'd like to do the bathroom thing by myself, you know?"

They bowed again but nevertheless trailed her mini-komono all the way to the temple-like masters' quarters and she briskly slid the door closed before they could get a toe in and strode into plush ornate quarters where Kagami and Tsukasa knelt on huge velvet cushions before a grand red lacquer table where Miyuki sat behind. It was like a suite out of a Sultans' palace.

"Man! These guys just can't do enough for you! All I wanted to do was to phone sensei to whack me a suspended animation spell to keep monsters and ebony marauders off my back till I got back into the game and I got all these old geezers on my tail who dialed for me, waved off my mosquitoes and wanna kiss my feet – and work up from there!"

"Yes!" Tsukasa ecstatically gushed, "They already sent out someone to the hotel to pick up our stuff and we even got new underwear! Gee! You'd thought they'd be upset ape by the way we messed up their shrine!"

"Only because they think Lo-Lee's incarnation from the nymph kami plane caused it, Tsukasa," Kagamin wryly reminded.

"Uh??"

"Haven't you caught on yet, Tsukasa? They think Yuki-chan's their patron child goddess returned to earth and that we just happened to arrive as her secret handmaidens preparing her way."

"Heck, Yuki-chin's always been a moe goddess to me – even without glasses and sounding and acting more like a guy in moe drag!!" Konata declared, flopping back onto a pile of pillows. "They're all out there waiting for us to escort princess pink's next fifteen minute trip to that cabinet again – and again. They must think you're constipated or something!"

"At this rate we'll never get any sleep!" Tsukasa whined.

"Yea. They must think you pay handmaidens by the hour! Say! Can't we ask these groveling guys to cut those star rocks out of that cabinet and make a couple of necklaces to stretch your moe time some? I mean they already say they all belong to you!"

"Konata-san, beyond the unethicity of it and that I don't own them, their low Zelta radiation emissions are only like a brief heart defibrillator for my dual DNA element to prompt partial activation of its metamorphication process. Once my physiology starts to adapt to this prolonged level of weak exposure my metamorphed state will destabilize regardless further exposure at this intensity and frequenxcy and I'll start to slide back again."

"Back into a lobster-bug again?" Tsukasa gushed then sheepishly gnashed her lower lip. "Sorry."

Miyuki shrugged."I'm unoffended, Tsukasa-san, since humans have limited frames of reference."

"Still, it's very impolite to forget so, Tsukasa," Kagami chided. "So how you feel now, Yuki-chan?"

"Outside a slight dizziness, nauseous I'm afraid, Kagami-san."

"Join the club the last couple days! Like, I'd my full of your inner insect!" Konata quipped, admiring their surroundings. "Man, are these or ain't these awesome digs! All those movies had it all wrong! These Old Masters sure know how to live!"

"Right. A new high in modest living," Kagami wryly quipped. "They must make a mint off their concession stands, but then I probably don't really want to know what else they sell!"

"Hey, I think I found one in the grass by the road after I phoned sensei to hold my place in our wizard game!" Konata said, groping the little foil packet from her pocket pouch and waved it before a shocked blushing Kagami and stunned open-mouthed Tsukasa. "Ribbed and mint flavored, isn't that cool? Even has a picture of them all smiling under the torii and all!"

Kagami grimaced. "That's so totally gross! Will you throw that – that thing back outside please??"

"Why? I'm gonna use it for an emergency!"

"WHAT??" the twins chorused.

"Yea! As a water container on the road! Gotta sake your thirst you know!"

"Only you would think like that!" scolded Kagami while Tsukasa mewed. "Really, Konata! You've absolutely no sense of decency or modesty or anything, have you?? Your soy-pickin' mind's been totally corrupted!"

"Geeze, you been cutting sex-ed or what? I mean not even Yuki-chan's blinking a pretty eyelash about it!"

"Then my native Mantisoid attitudes regarding human carnal practices are totally asexual, Konata-san. It's like whether the sex of a fly you swatted mattered to you."

"You know, Yuri-chan, you're gonna be lots of fun on our honeymoon!"

"Truthfully, I feel far more chagrined by the Master surrendering his quarters to me and offering me the deed here."

"Heck, don't poke a gift horse in the eye! These guys are falling all over themselves serving us! Use it before you lose it I say!"

"Konata, don't take advantage of our hosts' blind hospitality – especially after the damage we've done!"

"Com'on, chill, Kagamin! Who's taking advantage of anybody?" Konata rebuffed just as there was a knock at the door sounding like the first bars of "Hare Hare Yukai" and Konata jumped to answer a bowing apprentice who passed her a bowl heaped with whipped cream banana hot fudge ice cream. "Mmm! Awesome! Say, anyone else wants to order?"

Kagami shook her head in appall. "God! I've gained five pounds just looking at that thing! I'm utterly totally ashamed of you, Konata! Just when I was growing a new respect of your self-sacrifice and maturity in the face of a terrible moral dilemma! To exploit the blind ignorance of these holy men so – and after making a show of pigging out in front of the whole sect! You're just as cravenly opportunistic and greedy as ever!"

There was another door knock. "Uh, excuse me??" Tsukasa sheepishly squeaked as she scurried to the door to return with a strawberry cake heaping with cream. "Well, I couldn't help it!!"

In exasperation Kagami rolled her eyes and threw her hands. "Don't let sloth and gluttony go to your heads, right? We're out of here by morning. We've a mission, remember?"

"Geeseh, how can I forget? You know how hard it is for me to force my mind to forget certain things to be able to eat this??"

"Apparently you forget to turn that talent off for homework! Yuki-chan, how long can you last like that before the stones here no longer work and your cells start coming unglued again?

"Once my cumulative exposures in the shrine reaches the maximum Zelta flux saturation threshold for my current metamorphed state, I should remain like this for ninety minutes or so."

"So how much longer till you reach this level?"

"Approximately five or six hours."

"Man, that's a lotta cabinet trips just for ninety minutes of moe-dom! Can't you just hang around inside the shrine soaking up all the rays instead of going in and out every fifteen minutes?"

"I could do that, Konata-san, but it would severely impact my saturation threshold to perhaps an hour or less. It must be in graduated exposures for maximum effect."

"So, if you left this place right now without recharging every fifteen minutes...?"

"I'd start devolving immediately, and each time I do degrades my human memories a little bit more."

"Ninety minutes!" Kagami nearly swore in exasperation. "If only we were near a bullet train, we could get you home before you changed without needing any shrines!"

"Forget that!" Konata remarked. "These geezers say the nearest regular train station's forty minutes away down the mountain – and it's a once a day stop!"

"Suppose we took fast taxi rides to leap-froggie shrine to shrine before she changes? That's a lot faster than walking home too, isn't it?" Tsukasa said and Kagamin sighed;

"Tsukasa, it'd take a half hour just for a taxi to get all the way here – if they were punctual at all! And even then suppose we got stuck in traffic between shrines like everyone always does?"

"Yea, even Speed Racer gets parking tickets on the highways at rush hour!"

"Regrettably, Konata-san, it still isn't as simple as all that," Miyuki rued. "Not only can't we assume every shrine along the way has a meteorite in its collection, let alone those containing Zelta crystal particles with the right radiation flux, but my de-morphing period is highly variable over time, and as my physiology adapts for each successive exposure it will take an even more potent one to trigger a metamorphic reaction."

"Are you saying it's gonna take a larger and larger jolt to kick-start this hershin thing each time??"

"Also, any Zelta crystals whose radiation frequencies were altered by the temperature and stresses of the meteorite's entry through earth's atmosphere might even reverse my gains."

"Kiddin'! Man! You must've drawn a full hand of bad fortunes at New Years!"

"Yuki-chan, can you tell if this reverse thing's happening to you?" Kagami asked with concern.

"It should be a slightly different tingle, but it'd take a brief exposure to tell."

"Man, that sucks! Two steps forward, one step back! Whatta way to shuffle home!"

Kagami asked, "Suppose one of us rushed back to your house and picked up this trans-stator thing and brought it right back? How big is it?"

"About the size of a shoebox, but Mother's human mind isn't conscious of it or where it is."

"Isn't there any to reach her Mantisoid subconscious mind to appeal it for help?"

"Heck, we can hardly reach her even when she's conscious!" Konata quipped.

"Don't knock mother too hard, Konata-san," Miyuki rather stiffly said. "Despite the quirky results of her accidental trans-stator overdose while metamorphing into her human form after hatching me, she was previously the Mantisoid equivalent of an Einstein and Socrates with General Patton thrown in!"

"Kiddin'! Gee, now I don't feel so bad about your marks!"

"Kagami-san, confronting my mother wouldn't be a wise idea anyway since you've all picked up my male Mantisoid scent."

"Suppose we dunked in those hot tubs?" Tsukasa suggested then skittishly bit her tongue. "On second thought, how about a sponge bath in here?"

"Either's ineffective. Her olfactory senses are just too keen, and once she whiffs my male Mantisoid scent it'll start her – er, de-metamorphication cycle which in the wrong place would expose her truth."

"Uh...er, understood."

"What understood, Onee-chan? What??"

"Later Tsukasa. Look, isn't there any other way to increase the time you look like that, Yuki-chan?"

"Sadly, none, Kagami-san. I'm only very superficially human as it is. It's a minor miracle I could even speak much less walk."

"Well, just how superficial are you? Show us!" asked Konata and Miyuki shied.

"I – I'd rather decline to, Konata-san."

"Com'on, Yuki-chan! You look like a friggin' moe queen! I don't see any reason why you can't take a chance and make a run for the next place while looking like that!"

"Trust me, Konata-san, I'm not as stable as I look."

"Yea, well it sure doesn't show!"

"Looks only skin deep, Konata-san."

"Hey, I'd be a happy camper just with any scab from you! Com'on, Yuki-chan! Stop being so friggin' mysterious!"

Miyuki looked reluctant but too polite to refuse anyone she sighed and braced herself like she was psyching up then her sweet pink lips opened ridiculously wide and the others were jolted as something like a fluttering and twirling turkey-feather feather duster emerged. Tsukasa squeaked and swooned out under Kagami's waving hands.

"Er, save it for your dentist, huh?" Konata wryly said with a grimace, laying her ice cream aside as the crap withdrew into blushing Miyuki's mouth. "Man, I ain't never gonna grow tall, gettin' all grossed out like this!"

"Uhh??" Tsukasa said, dizzily coming to. "What – What happened?"

"Er, tell you later, Tsukasa."

"You keep saying that, Onee-chan!"

"Put it this way, Tsukasa; Yuri-chan just ruined our first kiss!" Konata sourly quipped as Kagami rose to pace.

Kagami sighed. "The whole problem is getting you past lots of people fast, Yuki-chan. If they all reacted like Tsukasa we'd be fine!"

"I still think my cosplay cover story's a good idea!"

"Konata, even Skywalker Ranch couldn't fix-up a human to looking even close to a Mantisoid! No, we need a way to take her with us in complete privacy even when she's – back like that. If we could only rent a car or...or – wait! Konata! You're an adult – on paper, right?"

"What you mean 'on paper'??"

"Forget vanity; suppose I rented you a car – a big one – on daddy's plastic to drive us home??"

Tsukasa nearly cringed. "Ko – Ko – Kona-chan – drive??"

"Chill, puppy! As for you, bunny; first, I never took driver's ed, and two, I get sick just sitting in cars, remember?"

Kagami's head sunk while Tsukasa sighed in giddy relief. "Well, least no one could accuse me of not scraping the bottom of the barrel! And for your 4-11, I'M not the one who oughta be any bunny – not with that harelip!"

"Wait, Onee-chan! Maybe we can get someone! Maybe we can tell Yuki-chan's secret to one of these priests who can drive us all the way home instead of just stopping at the hotel for our things!"

"Not a bad idea, Tsukasa – only if we blew Yuri-chan's secret we'd also blow their forgivance for the sacrilegious damage we caused here, and being that this sect's not exactly canon, instead of being astonished and awed that aliens really exist, they might take their outrage to the media and the bodiless cat will really hit the fan."

"It's not 'cat', Kagamin."

"I've more class than you, Konata."

"I'm afraid I have to agree," rued Miyuki, "It could prompt a witch hunt for Mantisoids among the population that'll make Joseph McCarty look like the Pope. It's disturbing enough that I'm lying to these people."

"You're not lying, Yuki-chan. Just – deceiving them. There's a difference you know!" Kagami issued. "You didn't say a thing to mislead them when they bowed to you and ushered you in here and neither did they ask. They took it on face value that you're some divine deity returned to earth. All you have to do is stay mum and you needn't worry about lying to anyone, see."

"Just hide the truth."

"It's when they ask you for the truth when you get honest, not before!" Konata quipped. "Jeese, Yuki-chan! It's a good thing you're so moe because sometimes I wonder how you're gonna make it in the dog-eat-dog world!"

"Don't be harsh, Konata! Some of us can do with scruples now and then! Though I admit, your self-sacrifices and willingness to die for Yuri-chan lately have surprised me. In fact..." Kagami began like a shy closet admirer, "It behooves me to say that – I'm even proud of you for sparing me the sin and shame of desecrating a holy place. My immortal soul can rest easier because of that."

Konata beamed a pleased cat-grin; "Ohh!! So I sacrificed my immortal soul to save yours, eh Kagaminnnn?? I'm so glad to hear that – because one day we'll have to work out on just how you'll repay me!"

"But then again, it might not have been a sacrifice anyway because you've no soul to lose!"

"Harsh, Kagamin. Harsh!"

"So what do we do??" asked Tsukasa and sighing Kagami shook her head and Konata jumped up and started, pacing like a general marching deep in thought. (sound over of Konata's military drum roll theme)

"What we need is a strategy!"

"Strategy?"

"Yes! It was decreed by the brigade chief; rescue the fair princess!"

Kagamin groaned under her breath; "Hoo-boy!"

"As the master strategic planner here here, I have to assess the situation! Obviously we're going to be on foot for this operation because we can't risk my charge transforming during motor transportation, correct?"

"'Operation'?"

"Yes, Kagamin! Operation Moe Bug!"

Miyuki blushed.

"And what we need to do is to plot dots between Yuki-chan's house and this place and start connecting them in a bee-line. The first thing we must appropriate is a good map of where all the shrines and parks and bakeries are between here and Yuki-chan's house!"

"Why parks and bakeries?"

"Well, parks where Yuki-chan can ensconce on our way, shrines where she can hershin to pump her memory and moe up, and bakeries to keep my friend quiet, right?" Konata quipped, rubbing her tummy. "We can plot out the fastest routes to hopscotch shrine to shrine with nearby back-up locations to cover for any shrines without any star rocks!"

"So how long is it going to take to get home on foot then?" Tsukasa soberly asked and Konata mulled, tapping her chin.

"Let's see...old Master Virile said that Tokyo is a hundred miles away, and on a good day in World War Two General Tanaka was able to march his battalion twenty miles in three days through steaming jungle in the rain, so we might be able to hoof it with interruptions in maybe two weeks easy."

"Two weeks?? Easy??" Tsukasa blurted, massaging her feet in dismay. "I'm not going to have any sandals left!"

Miyuki said, "Don't worry, Tsukasa, I can carry you. I owe your devotion at least that much."

Kagami followed-up; "Yuki-chan, can you hang on to your memories that long??"

"It's dependent on my Zelta radiation exposure since my human memory pattern decays quicker in my Mantisoid form. Already I sense minor gaps in my recollection of elementary school like what I liked for lunch there and what stature I made from clay for arts and craft, and as time passes they'll grow and deepen. If I'm careful and sacrifice my academic memories to hold on to my personality ones, I might make it in two weeks, but I might not recall much of high school by then."

"Poor thing!" Tsukasa empathized.

"Man, you're a picture of pathetic maxi moe right now, know that?" Konata clucked and Miyuki simpered as though from an innocent insult.

"I know that's supposed to be flattering addressed to a female, but I'm not one now, Konata-chan."

"Don't mind Konata, Yuki-chan," Kagami said. "She doesn't recall any school before last term without any memory problems!"

"Very funny, bunny ball! I seem to notice that it's not my school learning that you're hanging your hopes on to save your bacon, right princess? When this is all over I trust you'll give your blue knight a proper reward, ummm??"

"Honestly!" Kagami gushed over a blush. "That's no excuse for a real-world education – and let me remind you that I'm not the 'princess' the blue knight's trying to rescue – got it?!"

Konata grimaced like a dream was spoiled. "Yea, some princess! Half bug, half stud! You really scrambled up my brain with all your sex-switch stuff too, Yuki-chan!"

"Yes –" Kagami asked with intense not so academic curiosity. "When you showed in our minds, you looked like a – a high school hunk!"

"Yes, awesome!" Tsukasa gushed, almost starry-eyed. "He'd been star on our soccer team easy!"

Miyuki blushed with modest pride. "That was merely my temporal self-image of my human male life equivalent."

"You mean, what we saw is how you guess you'd look had you been hatched a human boy?"

"We don't hatch as humans; we metamorphose into one shortly after hatching, Kagami-san, but it's not a guess; it's a projection based on XY extrapolation."

"Huh??" Tsukasa asked.

"In other words, had the XY component of my dual DNA strand's human form's chromosomes been activated during metamorphication instead of my XX, my temporal projection was how my physical development would've appeared by now."

"Huh??"

"She – he – means that's how Miyuki would've looked had she been born a boy, Tsukasa."

"Huh?? But – awesome!"

Konata shrugged. "Figures Yuki-chan's moe flip side would be a moe-hunk! It's gonna sound funny saying this, but if you're supposed to be a dude upstairs, why would you wanna turn back into a chick?"

"Remember, Konata-san, my human side was raised a human female since infancy without any awareness of my true Mantisoid male psyche, so there's no gender conflict or confusion."

Kagami asked; "But don't you feel – funny being like that right now? A boy's mind in Yuki-chan's body?"

"Understand, Kagami-san, my male identity is as a Mantisoid male, not a human male. For a Mantisoid to favor being any particular human sex is like you picking favorites of being a female or male daffodil."

Konata sniffed. "Gee, somehow that makes me feel spayed!"

"No offense intended, Konata-san. I realize how unsettling and – confusing the subject is to you," Miyuki said, noticing Tsukasa and Kagami's rueful looks. "I wouldn't want your feelings confusing who I am with who I could've been."

Kagami sighed. "Well, why didn't you choose to be a boy to start out with?"

"It wasn't my choice to make, Kagami-san," Miyuki said a little abashedly. "Generally, all Mantisoid hatchlings on earth are metamorphosed as human females, regardless your Mantisoid sex as a – prudent pre-emptive counter-procreation measure."

"Huh??" Then getting it, Kagami blushed. "Uh... I see. So your mom wouldn't run into that – that problem you hinted before, right?"

"What? What??" Tsukasa asked.

"Er, later Tsukasa. So, is that why your dad's not around?"

"Affirmative. He departed after impregnating mother to start another Mantisoid family."

"What?? Just picked up and left like that??"

"He was following his primal Mantisoid instincts, Kagami-san."

"Just flew the nest and left her with an egg, huh?" Konata quipped. "Even bird dads hang around some!"

"You're too condemning, Konata-san. If you notice, my mother's not upset by it at all; deep her Mantisoid subconscious she knows this was his natural thing to do. Otherwise had father remained, his subconscious Mantisoid mating cycle would've constantly been triggering hers and by this time I'd have over three hundred siblings."

The trio blurted – "Three hundred brothers and sisters?"

"Actually, that's a – 'dangerous' mix for us, so it'd be more proper to say I'd end up with three hundred metamorphosed sisters."

Kagami blushed again. "The shock never stops with you, Yuri-chan!"

"What shock, Onee-chan?? What??"

"Later, Tsukasa. But still, Yuki-chan, don't you ever miss having a dad when you're human?"

Miyuki looked musive. "Of course. When I'm human I'm no different from you. But like my mother, my Mantisoid subconscious dampens the sense of loss."

"But you're also both Yuki-chan's mind and her Mantisoid mind, right?"

"It'd be more accurate to say that my female human mind partition is a subset of my Mantisoid one which acts independently."

"Mean like you're schizo, huh?"

"Not at all, Konata-san. My human female mind partition is every bit complete as any born human's mind. It's just unaware that it's nested in a greater entity."

"You mean it's like she's got amnesia about all her truth?" said Konata, shaking her head. "Man, it must suck for you getting your mind all shut off like that and not knowing who really are when you're her!"

"No, it'd be wrong to think of it that way..." Miyuki looked upward, the tip of her pink tongue pushing the edges of her sweet pink lips as though trying to translate an untranslatable concept. "It's like – I'm a passenger in the back seat of a car and someone else is driving. I see and know everything she does while she's driving, and in an emergency I can even reach over and nudge the steering wheel of her impulses and moods if it's necessary."

"Man, I have to take Shrink 101 to understand you!"

Kagami nodded. "I see. So that's how you can move Miyuki to shy X-rays and things that might expose her truth, right?"

"Yes, but that's all I really do. I don't try to take over the driving because that life memory is almost a sacred being in itself. Sometime though it's a difficult call, for example the biggest threat of my being exposed is a dentist since my oral cavity must pass such deep scrutiny, and it doesn't help that my metamorphication was less than perfect and I'm subject to cavities, so there is always some – apprehension while monitoring 'her' dental visits."

"So that's why Yuri-chan's so frightened of going to the dentist!" Tsukasa said like a brainer.

Konata clucked; "Yea! You sure pulled Yuki-chan's wheel right off the road and outta that chair a couple of times too!"

Miyuki blushed. "I'm only being prudent about my safety."

"And it makes me feel better somehow, that Yuki-chan's really her own woman and not a puppet" Kagami said with a pleased soft smile. "And whenever I see Yuki-chan now, I'll know that it's more than just 'her' looking back at me!"

Miyuki faced Kagami with a surprised but immensely grateful smile and bow. "And I'll always be happy you know, Kagami-san!"

Konata snickered. "Well, you can't get back to dainty princess mode soon enough for me! I don't hit on guys, no matter how moe they are! It already flips me out how you're acting like some uppity dude instead of the dainty doll I know!"

Tsukasa agreed. "Yes, it is a little confusing. You look like her but you're not at all like the Yuki-chan I know!"

"Perhaps it's because I'm not female – Mantisoid or human!" Miyuki asserted with a trace of slight and pride in her markedly boyish voice and demeanor and as though emphasizing it, straightening her boyish posture so. Amused by the incongruous appearance of a princess acting a tomboy, Kagamin tried to stifle a grin;

"Well, what else could we call you right now??" she asked Yuri-chan.

"Yea, maybe you gotta guy bug name too we can use instead? One we can pronounce better than your bug planet?"

Miyuki mulled long moments as though weighing a deep decision. "It's simply undone for a Mantisoid to utter their native name while in another form, much less for other life-forms to utter it back to your metamorphed state..."

"Man, almost make it sound like an insult!"

"Actually it's worst, Konata-san. To utter one's native Mantisoid name while in another form totally demeans one Mantisoid pride and being. It would be like – giving your mother the pet name of untreated sewage effluent."

"What's that?" Tsukasa asked.

"Er, you don't want to know, Tsukasa," Kagami said, tactfully saying. "Then maybe you shouldn't tell us, Yuri-chan."

"On the other claw, your using that human female name is highly insulting as well as inappropriate. However... there are extremely rare circumstances that where one's native name is an honor bestowed to outsiders..." Miyuki's stern boyish expression softened with a appreciation and regard. "And in these last days, all of you have proven that you deserve more than my life and trust but my name as well. So, Konata Izsumi, Kagami Hagarii, Tsukasa Hagiian, you may address me as – Zigar!"

Konata was lit-up with the novelty of it all; '"Zigar'! Macho, regal and spike! Cool!"

"Masculine ego knows no species, does it?" Kagami quipped at the two in general.

"It's an extreme honor for humans to be admitted a Mantisoid's native name, Kagami-san. It's happened only a handful of times in our history on earth. Early wars were fought to preserve the integrity of a clan's name. It is like – a combination of a person's word, a golden oath, and a wedding vow."

"Wedding??" Tsukasa gushed.

"She – he means how seriously it's taken, Tsukasa," Kagami explained then bowing respectfully to Miyuki-Zigar. "We're most honored by your trust, Zigar-san, just as Yuki-chan always had ours."

"Same here – but just one thing!" Konata chirped in with a waving finger. "All my sim detective and hunter skills made something obvious to me what these amateurs missed, and that's just how are you able to know all these things about your alien history if all your life was spent being Yuki-chan the earthling moe??"

(Miyuki's encyclopedic banter piano jingle) "Mantisoids possess what humans would call a racial memory, Konata-san. Since ancient times, thanks to the highly developed psychokinetic lobes of our brains, our most common experiences have been gradually psychogenically infused into our DNA strand so it becomes part of our inbred knowledge, very much like how species-specific behaviors and instincts are developed."

Kagami's jaw fell. "You mean, you're born – er, hatched – already educated??"

"Only the elementals of worldly knowledge and race history. Each generation updates it during metamorphication and it's shared during communal mating."

"Awesome!"

"Yea! Totally! Wow!!" Konata gushed, blown away by the concept. "No need to study anything because it's all already in your head! Awesome! That means – who needs school? Who needs books? Who needs – needs homework??"

"Like don't have on orgasm, Konata!" Kagami snapped. "I'm afraid you're going to have to learn history and science the old fashioned way; Homework!!" she stressed with savored emphasis to see Konata wince and groan.

"Man, life sucks! Why couldn't I been hatched??" Konata groaned then snapped erect like a new "gotcha" to announce. "Well, you're good at explaining that – but explain how come you're all cute, stacked and curvy now when you used to be a way bigger bug with legs and claws stickin' out and a bigger head and eyes and all! So what's the henshin trick?"

"No trick, Konata-san, at least no more than when you see a dozen clowns pop out of a tiny car at a circus."

"Com'on!"

"It's true. Once retro-metamorphosis exhumes excess water from my Mantisoid physiology, my mass is also greatly compressed in andromorphic form, analogous to a popcorn kernel before it gets popped."

"You mean all that big bug you is all squeezed up tight inside that moe you??"

"Yes. Biologically it's really not that much different from caterpillars becoming moths but in reverse. "

Unlike Konata, Kagami was fighting to not sound skeptical; "You're saying that – something twice your size and heavier than the three of us put together's all wound up tight in you?"

"Not even the best spandex bodyshaper can do that!!" Tsukasa chimed in with an intellectual contribution. Miyuki-Zigar looked reserved then sighed.

"Have you ever seen anyone lift me off my feet, Konata-san? Kagami-san? Tsukasa-san?"

The others mulled and shook their heads. "Humm. Come to think of it, no." Konata admitted.

Tsukasa nodded. "Not at P.E. or the beach. Not even helping you in here! I can't think of any time when someone took you off your feet."

"When you come to think of it, you don't seem to let it happen," Kagami observed.

"Of course my human side's unaware the true reason why," Miyuki-Zigar explained, (Miyuki's encyclopedic banter piano jingle) "That's because my cellular density in human form is not only far greater but there are no internal voids or cavities at all as in normal human physiology, just a solid mass of tissue and bone with the average density of ironwood throughout my body, save for orifices as my mouth and sinuses. Such self-compaction isn't unknown in nature, as cited by the 'shrinking' hibernating toads of Panama and the scaly lungfish of Madagascar when it does so to sleep through droughts in mud. So despite my lithe human physique I retain my native mass of three hundred ten pounds."

"Three hundred pounds??" Kagami gushed, incredulous.

"I might've lost a pound or two lately from my stress. Perhaps three-oh-four."

Kagami almost fainted.

Tsukasa said. "Three hundred pounds?? Gosh, you sure don't show it!"

Konata snickered. "Com'on, that's bull! You're a ballerina, not a sumo wrestler!!"

"Thank you for the compliment, Konata-san, but everything I said – as always – is true."

"But you're slim and soft all over, not hard as a rock!" Kagami blurted. "You couldn't possibly weight that much!"

"Actually a plastic bag molded your shape filled with water would be well over twice your weight, Kagami-san, yet be just as soft and supple."

Konata snickered. "Com'on! That's a crock! I mean you're heavy moe, but not plain heavy, com'on!!" she scoffed, brashly moving up behind Miyuki-Zigar to grab her under the armpits and heave – and nearly up jerked herself off her feet to the floor without so much budging the flaxen-pink goddess. "Holy crap! Don't believe it! And I think I got a hernia!"

Kagami's eyes bugged; "Incredible! And you don't look an ounce over eighty-nine!" she uttered in awe with a touch of bitter jealousy. "But – I can't believe no one's ever noticed your real weight before!!"

"Really, Kagami-san! Of all people, you should be most aware and keen of ways to keep others from perceiving your true weight."

Blushing, tittering Kagami had to nod. "Well, you've a point there! Still, why doesn't the school nurse notice that when you step on her old scale??"

"Actually, the needle swiftly spins around the dial three times and happens to stop at ninety pounds and she assumes that's correct."

"But you're so light and nimble on your feet, Yuki-chan – uh, Zigar-san!" gushed Tsukasa, "I would've never guessed!"

The pink-tressed one modestly smiled. (encyclopedic banter piano jingle) "Granted, my muscle strength does compensate for inertia enough to make it appear that I'm agile, still, possessing mass compressed a small volume in a lower gravity field like earth often tricks your sense of momentum and kinetic center of balance, and that's why my unwary human side sometimes trips over my feet or seems so clumsy. It's very much like the problem astronauts on the moon face when they try to walk or turn; they can easily overpower the minimum effort required to do it. Likewise, it's very hard for me to turn and walk then stop on a proverbial dime like doing our Op, though of course my human self thinks that's how everyone feels, and that's why my hardest test of balance and motion at was the relay race at sports day."

"Man!" Konata said. "Good thing I made you dump that obstacle course! You would've mowed down everything worst than a quarterback or Tsukasa at the hurtles!"

Tsukasa sheepishly shied the mention; "Well... I did wonder why your chair creaked more and your bed sank lower whenever Yuri-chan sat on it when we did homework together, Kona-chan, but I always thought it just had bad springs!"

Kagami nodded. "Come to think of it, the gym bar does seem to sag a little more when you do chin-ups at P.E,. and the stage floor did thump a little louder whenever you fell while practicing kicks for our OP. Now I begin to understand why you don't swim or ride in little boats!"

Konata nodded. "Yea, and why you're always last pick for dodge ball teams! Well, suppose someone took X-rays of you? What then?"

"I just don't get them. Rather, I nudge my human mind clear of them."

"Well, suppose you had an accident?"

"It would take a lot to sufficiently damage me to lose total consciousness to avoid such a situation, Konata-san, though my human self is unaware of it, of course. There's almost no car crash I can't stagger away from, for example."

"Well, least we know why guys haven't been able to sweep you off your feet – or had the chance!" chuckled Kagami.

"Man, Yuki-chan! For weirdness, even Yamato Nagamori can't hold a candle to you! I just can't wait to check out your next henshin!"

Miyuki-Zigar blushed. "Uh, actually, it is kind of a – private experience, Konata-san. Like going to the bathroom."

"That's okay. I'll leave my camera cell home."

"Konata, don't you get it? She said no!" Kagami snapped.

"Com'on, Kagami! Wouldn't you want to see it happen? A moe babe turning a big lobster-bug and back??"

"Actually, it's not very pretty, Konata-san. It's not at all like computer morphing faces or those Wolfman films."

"That makes it even more moe!!"

"Like sigh! Don't mind her, Yuki-chan! Honestly, Konata, sometimes it just creeps me out how warped you are!" Kagami chided just as they faintly heard the gate bell peal.

"Wonder what that's for?" Konata asked and Kagami shrugged.

"Probably the mid-night bell. Who knows around here!"

"I should be getting on anyway," warned Miyuki-Zigar, rising and Kagami nodded.

"Right. And to make things look proper I'll escort you to the shrine myself, Miyuki – er, Zigar-san. Konata, since you're so gung-ho about 'Operation Moe Bug,' you can stay here with your dessert and have the priests toss you all the maps you need to connect your dots home."

"Cool! I need a break from having my shadow stomped on!"

"How about me, Onee-chan?"

"Finish your dessert then try to get one of these guys to fix us up with clothes we can wear on the street tomorrow without getting picked up!"

- - - - -

Sliding the gate's front door's slot open, the gatekeeper yawned. "Who goes there??"

"Nippon Lost Native Child Search Services!" Yuji replied before a heavily loaded team; "We're searching for several lost young native children."

"Lost young children?? Good heavens! Er, girls or boys?"

"Girls."

"Say no more! We'll join you!"

"No, that won't be necessary. We need to search your premises."

"There's no need. There're no native girls here anymore, virgin or otherwise."

"Still, we're humanitarianly obliged to do a thorough flushing – er, search in these premises in case these poor defenseless innocents somehow slipped in there for warmth."

"Then why do I see MU-34 neurotoxin grenades, Apex 1OU 200-amp bovine stun staffs and Ahmen 12-PE immobilization gel canisters mounted on M-16b recoilless rifles?"

"Thought you all were simple monks."

"Just a lucky guess."

"No big deal. Merely protection against any wild attacks in the forest during our search."

"Uh! We sure could've used you all out in Okinawa! Besides as I said, we're clean!"

"So you've no underage children here at all, despite your local reputation and all these small human footprints in the dirt outside your gates?"

"Uh, would that count three excessively garrulous high school seniors who look and act like nauseously loquacious kids barely in junior high?"

"Please! You couldn't even make a cheap manga out of that idea! Give us access."

"Unless you've a warrant, you are trespassing sacred ground! There!"

"Just give us a minute! Aki!" Yuji called and a grad student with a pail hustled up and started pouring thick white paste over the small footprints.

The gatekeeper frowned. "What are you doing??"

"Just making some plaster casts to send the offices of religious tax exemption and the ministery of underage moral violations."

"Hold on! This latch is heavy!!"

- - - - -

"You wish to candidly discuss something with me," Miyuki-Zigar demurely surmised after long quiet minutes alone with Kagami in the shrine, her miko's sleeve-draped arms outstretched while she slowly revolved before the opened cabinet like a ham in a rotisserie. Her words broke Kagami's pensive gaze out at the entrance.

"Uh? Er, what made you think that?"

"Your brooding is deafening, and I sense you specifically escorted me here instead of requesting Tsukasa to for a purpose."

"I'm that glass, huh?" Kagami sheepishly quipped then took a hesitant breath as she collected herself. "Uh, yes. See...uh, the only reason I can talk to you about – about this is because...because –"

"Because I'll 'forget' all about this when I'm human again, right?"

"You've never been shy about the truth, Yuki-chan."

"Also, you feel uncomfortable talking to me because you remember me as I really am."

"To the point as usual. Yes, it's – kinda hard to get used to. I mean, it's hard to believe that something so – so different could be so kind and gentle inside!"

"But you're still grossed-out."

Kagami blushed. "No, not that far. I...no. You're right. I'm sorry."

"Don't be, Kagami-san. When I'm human once more I'd probably scream then faint dead away at the sight of my Mantisoid self too."

Kagami lightly chuckled at the irony; "Isn't that just weird?"

"I was raised human since an infant, Kagami-san. When I'm fully re-morphed again I'll be the very same Miyuki you always knew, just as human through and through and no different had I been born human and had real human parents in this reality stream."

"I know...and when you become normal again – er, our Yuri-chan again, I'm probably going to think all this was a bad dream because you're so – natural."

Miyuki-Zigar bowed. "Thank you." she replied, pausing at the vague hesitant look on Kagami's face. "There's something else you're very reluctant to ask, is there not?"

Kagami bit her lower lip then resigned to a far more perceptive other. "Nothing gets by you, does it? Yes, right again, and what's funny about is – a girl doesn't often get a chance to rail at a – well, rival in a way."

"Rival?"

"Yes –" Kagami abashedly admitted. "See...I – I've always been very – jealous of you, Miyuki."

"Jealous??"

"You're way more intelligent, athletic, and not the very least beautiful. Awesomely beautiful."

"As I told Konata-san, flattery's wasted on me, Kagami-san. Besides, you're avoiding your true beef."

"Okay then, if you really want to know, you kind of make me feel like I'm a – a boy! Like I've been stacked up against an opus of Hollywood plastic surgery, is that close enough?"

Miyuki-Zigar lightly chuckled with her nod. "I see. You feel I cheated, as though my human appearance was bio-engineered perfect, yes? So perfect that 'normal' natural females can't compete?"

Kagami sheepishly dropped her head. "Some – something like that."

"You've no cause to feel that way, Kagami-san. When Mantisoids are hatched, by tradition and practicality our spare DNA element has to be programmed from a human source for hatchlings to metamorphicize into human infants, and my DNA composite sample was taken from the stillborn of one of my mother's closest human friends."

Kagami's jaw dropped. "What?? Are you saying that had that baby lived she would've looked like you??"

"Like a clone. Of course she wouldn't possess my slight metamorphic anomalies like bad eyes and teeth and flaxen-pink hair, but in all other physical and more basic psychological respects she would've been the same."

Kagami was awed. "Wow! I shouldn't really feel better about that, yet I do, like it makes you seem even more... more –"

"Human?"

"Yes..." Kagami admitted. "That's why I could never understand why you weren't swamped by boys...though I kind of understand why now."

Miyuki-Zigar smiled slightly, if sobered by an embarrassing and bitter fact that was finally being shared in relief. "There're have been times, when I – my female human self – had crushes on boys...but – it's only now that I'm truly feeling the pain of that shyness...and desire."

"Only now? But you said you're aware of everything your human side does, right?"

"Yes...but sometimes omniscience can overlook and drown the subtleties of a grass-roots experience, Kagami-san. It's very much like a college student who can't relive the same innocent joy of their fun back in kindergarten."

Kagami fought to strain the smugness dawning from her comprehension. "Your complicated Mantisoid mind can't feel 'simple' human emotions like we – and our Yuki-chan does, can it, Zigar-san?"

Miyuki-Zigar paused and mildly nodded like a grudging sombering admission. "There are – some things my human mind matrix comprehends better than my native whole, yes."

"Like loneliness, sorrow, joy."

"Mantisoids have such."

"But not exactly the same, right?" Kagami pressed and the pink princess for a moment bridled with miffed pride before resigning in their new intimate regard with a slow nod. "You know, in a way that makes me feel even better; that Yuki-chan's even a mystery to you!" Kagami remarked, pausing for a pregnant wonder gingerly delivered. "Uh... so, why do you make Yuri-chan shy from having any boyfriends? I've got a warped excuse I can't say under a holy roof, but there's no reason why Yuri-chan couldn't have more normal relationships, you know?"

Miyuki-Zigar gnashed her lower lip. "It's – not really... We...don't really like to be – entangled in intimate human relations."

"You're afraid of getting in too deep, huh? Or maybe of Yuri-chan being charmed by a boy – like you are?"

"I don't under –" Miyuki-Zigar blinked, caught off guard for once then rather feebly straightened. "I'm not – partial to human sexuality."

"So why not let Yuki-chan's steering wheel go! It's just a boyfriend, not like she'd be getting married or anything! I mean, it shouldn't be any reflection on how – manly your Mantisoid male self is, right?" she shrewdly but coyly posed and Miyuki-Zigar mulled as Kagami clasped her hand. "Com'on! Yuki-chan and I can learn about boys together, and believe me I could use some moral support!"

Miyuki-Zigar mulled and guardedly said. "I...suppose my – human self having a boyfriend couldn't hurt – since it bears no relation to my core self – as you said," she assured with salvaged pride then suddenly looked busy as though to change an embarrassing topic. "I think my body's Zelta saturated now, Kagami-san. I won't have to return here another sixteen minutes."

"You'll be wearing out our horny hosts before morning!" chuckled Kagami then turned sober. "I hope Konata's worked out a scheme with places you can hide on the way home. I never thought I'd be depending on her otaku fixations like this! The sassy idiot!"

"You like Konata-san very very much. don't you, Kagami-san?" Miyuki-Zigar asked, and Kagami was doubly startled by the more-than-knowing look the pink one gave her and she blushed and shied nonplussed again.

"It's – a holy place," Kagami demurred as an excuse, but Miyuki-Zigar's sly prying smile chagrined her to sigh. "Need I say anything to you, Yuri-chan??" she said in exasperated resignation before sage perception. "That – little egomaniacal freakizoid maniac otaku has me –has me all tied up in knots – and I can't cut loose!!"

"Do you really want to, Kagami-san?" gently asked Miyuki-Zigar and blushing, Kagami gazed at the floor.

"Dad likes to say when he catches me alone that...that I'm the 'goodest' of all his girls. Not just cute or nice or smart, but the most good and proper. And I always tried to live it, Yuki-chan, and I've been teased a lot for keeping straight and true to the golden rule until I ...met this – this little monster!" Kagami shook her head in sober wistfulness. "Sometimes I pray that she'll do something so gross and outrageous that it'll turn me completely and totally off – but she hasn't reached it yet!"

"A bittersweet dilemma, is it not? What you're really hoping is that I'll say that your feelings are wrong, aren't you?"

"It – would help, Yuki-chan."

"Then, there's my Mantisoid point of view and my human point of view."

"Yuki-chan's always been very – tolerant, I've always sensed that. But you're so much wiser, Zigar-san..."

Miyuki-Zigar paused as though slaved by history. "I can't judge your feelings by my standards, Yuki-chan. Mantisoids have survived under extremely harsh conditions because our rules and lifestyle is very harsh and spartan. Even unforgivable. We couldn't afford the luxury of unproductive diversity or hedonism and so it runs to this day. It's made us a very strong race with common values and mindsets that doesn't allow dissent or confusion or weakness. So you see, it'd be very unfair for me to give you an answer either way."

"Forgive me, but it all sounds so very – cold, Miyuki – Zigar-san."

"From a human vantage, yes, but then how 'warm' do humans appear to chickens and squid and cows?"

Kagami sighed and her drooped head nodded. "Yes. You're right. I was looking for a – quick confident..."

Miyuki-Zigar tenderly considered her. "I admire your conflicting will, Kagami-san...and I would be honored to comfort your private distress."

"Huh? Sorry?"

"Since I've already conferred my name to you, all other personal issues are minor, so I can gift you this, Kagami Hiiagi; when my fully human form is sleeping or napping or even daydreaming, whisper in my ear and I shall answer your pines."

"What? You mean, I can – 'talk' to you while Yuki-chan's sleeping? And she won't remember?"

"My human psyche will be totally oblivious to it, even waking in the middle of our – 'chat'."

Kagami trembled with gratitude before she hugged the willowy flaxen-pink maiden. "O God, Yuki-chan! Someone to talk to! To really talk to about things I can't even confess to myself –!!"

Miyuki-Zigar smiled and bowed. "It would be my honor, Kagami-san. I only regret humans seldom relate such issues with siblings and parents, though I sense that my human psyche comprehends why."

Kagami wiped moist eyes and beamed. "Zigar-san, you're more human all by yourself than you'll ever know!"

"Honestly, Kagami-san! After being granted such a privilege there's no need to insult me!"

Kagami chuckled and and turned to lead their way out there shrine when I noticed right outside a general commotion as priests scurried about with strange young men armed with guns and bulky hardware on their backs.

"What's going on?" asked Kagami of one of the rushing priests.

"The Child Services Search Agency, O Highness! They're searching for some lost native girls!"

"Lost native girls?"

"Then we've got to help them," Miyuki-Zigar said.

"Yuki-chan – er, Zigar-san are you crazy? You can barely keep yourself together!"

"No matter, I must help. Like everyone should, true?"

Konata sighed, feeling somewhat guilty and abashed. "Why'd we have to get stuck with such a goody-two-shoes do-gooder, huh??" she quipped just as Konata and Tsukasa sauntered up. "Why are they carrying guns and bottles on their backs?"

"Those aren't bottles," Konata said, fascinated. "Those are MU-34 neurotoxin grenade canisters and Apex 1OU 200-amp bovine stun staffs and Ahmen 12-PE immobilization gel canisters mounted on M-16 recoilless rifles."

"So what military sim did you get that off? Red Dawn? Blitzkrieg Raiders? Battle of Honor? Badge of Blood?"

"eBay's survivalist sale."

A cadre of the search party, apparently directed by a slim bespectacled professor-type in khakis trailed by a curvy bespectacled curvy type in short-shorts and a tight safari blouse, was walking the compound with several priests, including the old Venerable One.

"That looks like the team leader. Let's ask what we can do," Kagami said, leading them by a few steps before sensing they were missing someone and she looked back, puzzled to see Miyuki-Zigar frozen in her tracks.

"Miyuki, what's wrong? Changed your mind?" asked Kagami, but the pink-tressed goddess was entirely motionless, her face had gone white and eyes wide and round. The girl was absolutely petrified.

Konata tugged Miyuki-Zigar's sleeve. "Yuki-chan! what's wrong?"

Miyuki-Zigar could barely even stammer and when she did her voice was mousy soft and trembling; "Th – Th – That's the man who – who swatted all my eyes and tried to pull my teeth – and without novacaine!!" she cried, throwing her arms around her head which Kagami soothingly petted.

"It's alright, it's alright. Look, are you sure, Yuki – are you sure? You're not wearing glasses."

Miyuki-Zigar could only feebly nod and Kagami thought that the girl might faint; 'What's keeping her standing??' Kagami wondered. 'Just the sheer force of her training to always be polite??'

Miyuki-Zigar's distress kindled Kagami's immediate scorn and distrust of the young naturalist striding their way and Osato stopped before the four seeming miko and gave them a cursory bow.

"Good evening, ladies," Osato said. "I am Osato, and this is my assistant and sister, Uzi. Sorry for the intrusion but we're an emergency search party."

"Search party??" Konata said, gesturing their gear. "Man, that must be one nasty dude you're after!"

Osato chuckled. "No-no, we looking for some lost native girls in the wilds. We just believe in the Boy Scout motto; be prepared, that's all."

"Well, Godzilla hasn't been this way for generations."

"Cute. My, I didn't know they had little junior miko too!"

Konata bristled. "I'm an adult! Wanna hear some adult words??"

Uzi shrugged. "What kid doesn't?" she said, then noticed the way Kagami was half propping Miyuki-Zigar on her shoulder. "Say, are you alright, honey? You look flushed?"

Kagami hastily blurted; "Er, she's just – a little tired from all her homaging."

"That's the one I was talking about!" the Venerable One excitedly related to Osato who looked partly amused like a modern-world cynic in a superstitious native village.

"So, you're the miracle maid who dropped in from the heavens, are you?" he said with suave interest. "Well, your beauty's certainly angelic enough."

Uzi smirked. "Osato, these are holy girls, remember?" she chided, then noticed how Miyuki-Zigar was visibly trembling, her violet eyes wide as saucers at Osato, almost cowering back. "Hon, are you sick??"

Kagami moved in front of Miyuki-Zigar. "No, no she's just – tired, like I said."

"Kidding? She looks like she's on the verge of a convulsion!"

"No, she always looks like that when she's in a trance communing with the spirits!" Tsukasa hastily blurted much to the surprise of Kagami and Konata and even Miyuki-Zigar.

The Venerable One relaxed and grinned. "See, Osato-san? She IS truly blessed!"

"Well, she's certainly blessed all the right ways," Osato decided. "I wouldn't mind interviewing her after her spirit quest."

"She's still in high school – just like me!" Konata crisply warned to Osato's wince.

"Yea, like it matters!" quipped Uzi and Osato's chuckle evaporated with a frown and quizzical squint at Konata.

"Strange," he wondered aloud, "Have we met before?"

"Nope. I remember every teacher I ever had so I don't bump into any on the street!"

"Odd. I don't why I've this fresh sense of deja vu..." He glanced at Tsukasa and Kagami and his puzzlement deepened. "In fact, why do I have this fuzzy blurry feeling I've seen you three somewhere before??"

"Er, I recognize you from TV!" Tsukasa hastily put in. "You're Osato Kendo, the Creature Features guy, right?"

Osato beamed. "Hey, a fan in wilds! See, Uzi? The ratings demos are always screwed up!"

Uzi also started eying the three girls with nagging wonder. "Come to think of it, Osato, they do kind of remind you of –"

Suddenly a grad student excitedly rushed over. "Sir! The shrine! Our sniffer's gone crazy around there it!"

"The shrine? Storm it!" Osato cried into his radio. "Converge on shrine! Shrine hot! Shrine hot!!"

"Wait!" cried the Venerable One. "You can't enter the shrine like that and with weapons! It is a sacred place! A sanctuary of peace! Our reason and purpose! The whole reason of existence!"

"What are the proceeds from your concession stands and booths during festival?"

"What does that matter??"

"If we find what we're looking for in there, we'll multiply that fifty-fold."

"You may enter one at a time. And wash your hand and mouth first!"

Grabbing a stun rifle, Osato turned to Yuji and several grads. "Yuji, cordon the temple!"

"Right! Lock and loaded!" Yuji snapped, waving several grad students to surround the shrine while Osato marched for the shrine entrance with three other young men cocking rifles.

"Jeese, why don't you just say come out with your hands up?" quipped Konata.

"Onee-chan, I have a funny feeling that they're not really looking for lost native girls."

"No kidding!" Konata quipped, noticing how Uzi stopped in her tracks at Tsukasa's remark and looked them over with intense pondering and hurried after her brother.

"This doesn't feel good." Kagami said with trepidation. "I think we better leave while the going's confused."

"You think they're looking for Yuki-chan, Onee-chan?"

"Do the math, Tsukasa! Zigar-san recognizes them and they somehow recognize us – almost."

"But how?"

"I guess Zigar-sama hadn't scared them off enough from the beach," Konata said. "They were probably spying on her trying to figure out what to do and saw us come back with the shrimp and – whatever."

"So they must think we're these 'native girls'!"

"That's just an excuse to search all loaded up like that, Tsukasa," Kagami said. "It's Yuki-chan they really want!"

"But – they don't know that she's – what she was before!"

"At least not yet," Kagami said, fanning Miyuki-Zigar's face. "Zigar-san! Zigar-san! Can they find about you with these sniffers?"

As though in a sick daze, the pink princess weakly shook her head. "No..." she weakly said in near gulps. "...but if..if I de-volve a little more..."

"Damn, Yuki-chan, I know you're scared shit of them, but why you coming apart like that? You faint and it'll take three Swartzeneggars to haul your sweet butt outta here! "

"Also – fighting – self-defense – instincts... like – adrenalin...de-volves...me..."

Kagami thought it out. "You mean fear can make you turn back faster to fight back?"

"Whoa! We don't need that here!" Konata said, concerned. "If she goes wild she'll take all these guys out faster than a free pass at Gamers! Not to mention setting us back to square one!"

"That's going to happen anyway since we obviously won't be able to get back into the shrine again in time now!" rued Kagami.

"You mean we have to leave? In the dark? In the forest again??" Tsukasa asked with dismay. "But – the priest they sent out to fetch our things from the hotel –"

"We'll just have to miss him, Tsukasa."

"But maybe they'll leave when they don't find anything!"

"Dream on, Tsukasa!" Konata said. "If they're good as they way they've surrounded this place, they'll stake out the shrine till lunchtime!"

"Well suppose we told Osato-chan about Yuki-chan? He likes her, so maybe he'll help her too!"

"Kiddin'? She's his golden OCS coupon to fame and fortune. She might as well hang up ever being free or human again!"

Miyuki-Zigar weakly nodded. "I – I'll die first."

Understanding, Kagami stroked the pink one's shoulder. "Yuki-chan, think you can make it back to our quarters? We have to get ready to get out of here."

"Yea, the clock's ticking! Think you can keep yourself together till then?"

"I think so. I – must."

Konata's shoulder went under Miyuki-Zigar's left arm and Kagami's on whose right to help Miyuki-Zigar stagger away back to their quarters. "Here's the womens' clothes they brought me!" Tsukasa said, of the nineteen-forties women's wear.

"Man, these guys are stuck in the stone age!" chaffed Konata as they hastily exchanged their miko garb for WWII styles.

"How far did you get with the map?" Kagami asked Konata while dressing.

"Next shrine over's in Gamera, down the highway three miles, and there's an alternate a half mile after that. I also found another near a stadium west of that. Between them there's gotta be one with some sky rocks. Good news is there's a Curry Palace and McDonalds along the way!"

"A lot of good that'll be with no cash or plastic!"

Tsukasa whined.

"Hey, no problemo!!" Konata perked, whipping out a wad of bills. "We'll be able to eat and sleep on the hoof in style!"

"Konata, you didn't steal that, did you?"

"Of course not! I'm immoral, but not unethical!"

"So how'd you do it?" asked Kagami to the suddenly hedging blue-hair. "Konata!"

"Not like that! Sheesh! These are grubby old geezers after all! Be just like home!"

"Konata!!"

"Alright, alright. I didn't know we were going to split so early – and just so you know, they're the ones brought up the idea of us doing an encore on the sly after our performance under the torii, not me!"

"What idea?" asked Kagami and Konata sighed and went to a corner and dragged out a cloth bag and took out a child's size French maid uniform and playboy bunny outfit and shiny leather bathing suit.

Kagami's jaw dropped. "What the heck were they doing with those??"

"Well, let's just say their festivals do REAL well!"

"Honestly Konata! You were going to sell us out like harem girls, weren't you? I'd tell you to throw that skin money back at them, but helping Yuri-chan's way more worthy for it!"

"Onee-chan, what do we say to them about leaving?"

"Nothing! Last thing we need is anyone following us! Let's use the rear gate way back the phone booth. You alright, Yuki-chan?"

"I – I think so. We've still several minutes before I start de-volving."

"How long will that take before you're a – all Mantisoid again?"

"As long I'm not stressed-out again, approximately two hours, Kagami-san."

"So it's gradual then? Great! For once a slow hershin's a big help!"

The girls primped then left and quietly made their way for the secluded rear gate which had a long thick log as a bar latch. Insisting that Miyuki-Zigar stand aside to rest, Konata then all three girls put their shoulders into lifting the bar but it wouldn't budge.

"Man, no wonder they don't need a guy back here! This thing ain't goin' anywhere!"

"Let me try, Konata-san," Miyuki-Zigar said with a bow, moving up to the door and lifted the bar with the effort of lifting a heavy sack of potatoes. Konata shook her head.

"Awesome! Spidey strength's something else!"

"Actually I've always had it; my human side just didn't know it," Miyuki-Zigar said, grabbing the handle and about to pull the gate open when there was a shrill whistle behind them and they whirled to see a group of grads headed by Osato advancing.

"Halt! No one leaves!"

"We just – wanna go out for air!" Tsukasa said.

"Sorry, no unauthorized gallivanting or trekking anywhere outside during this emergency."

"What emergency?" Konata said. "You're looking for a bunch of kids, not some mountain lions, right?"

"You can't keep us in here!" Kagami chided. "You're not police!"

"Wrongo! I've been deputized by a magistrate at the Defense Ministry as a peace officer in charge a search party on a state preserve – which means I'm the official authority here! And I declare that the situation's too dangerous for any civilians to leave this compound!"

"Besides, why the sudden urge to – flee??" asked Uzi.

As Osato moved close, Miyuki-Zigar whined on rubber knees and he frowned and looked down at her feet. "Funny. I don't recall you almost being bare-foot eye-level with me before."

"Oh-Oh..." Konata muttered as she and Kagami and Tsukasa exchanged fretful looks.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

--

The next chapter is pending adequate review feedback. In the interim take a sneak preview of "The Yamato Effect" inside the "Things" folder here:

hhttttppp/cid-97ced31d5762bc93.skydrive./self.aspx/Things

(fix and cut and paste URL)


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